Remy Maclay
by Shieldage
Summary: Arriving in Buffy's world shortly after Season 5's 'Family', Gambit tracks down the relatives he never knew he had. He finds Tara, but life's rarely easy...
1. A Grave

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Written for Weaver's Challenge "Remy's Relatives" at _Twisting the Hellmouth_. Hopefully I've captured 'the Witness' well, I don't have much reference for him.

* * *

A heavy thud against his door woke Remy LeBeau, commonly known as Gambit, from a sound sleep.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he drawled as he threw on his robe.

He opened the door.

He slammed it.

He cautiously opened it again.

There was a swamp on the other side of the door and a small family crypt.

Ominous.

##

He held the door open and listened to the sounds of nature greeting the dawn.

His voice rang clear in the relative silence: "Sinister?"

His question was answered from the direction of his bed, in a voice remarkably like his own: "I've always fancied myself as more of a Dexter."

Remy spun around to see a deceptively old man with long white hair. He recognized him easily... The strange man, the self-proclaimed 'Witness' to all realities, looked the same as he had when Remy had played in his 'yard' back in New Orleans.

Remy had been six.

"Haven't seen you since that adventure with Bishop, _mon ami_... Any reason for dis sudden appearance?"

The Witness nodded, with a faint smile.

Bishop had been quite shocked to run into him in the present. Eighty years into Bishop's timeline, they'd been friends. That far into the future, the Witness hadn't seemed a day older.

"You've lost attachments to this reality," the white-haired man said. "This is a time of rest and recovery between times of chaos. You might as well make the most of it...

"Ever wonder why, even with all the resources of the X-Men, you were never able to find your birth family... Never able to discover why they abandoned you? Look under the name of Samantha. They'll be the people you seek."

Remy frowned at this information. He'd never known the man to lie outright, but his facts were a bit hazy at times...

Arguing rarely helped.

After a pause, the brown-haired man drawled: "Ever heard of a thing called a map? Why the shortcut?"

"They're in another reality. This is easier."

"Who is... was... Samantha?"

"Your mother."

Remy turned to look at the stone structure a few yards in front of his misplaced room.

"You've denied being an older me," Remy stated. "You've never implied you were my father, so I have to ask... Is the reason that I look exactly like you because you changed me, somehow, when I was a boy?"

"I mean, it'd help me-" he continued as he turned around, only to realize that he was now alone...

##

Remy packed his things and left a note on his pillow. It gave a rough version of where he might be going and who he had been sent to find.

He readied his staff, took a deep breath, and stepped through the door.

He wasn't too surprised to look over his shoulder and see no sign of his room or the doorframe.

He was stuck in another reality with no apparent way back. No way to go, but forward.

"At least I won't be missed by _ma petite_," Remy drawled. "She's too busy fawning over the beau her 'mama' set her up with. Is it my fault Mystique tried to jump me in her body?"

He shook his head, then leaned over to grab a rock from the ground. "Maybe dat is the case..."

Remy strolled forward, under the arch that read 'Maclay', and into the dark space within.

He charged the rock. In the familiar purple glow, he found the space where his mother had been laid to rest.

He paid particular attention to the phrase: "Loving mother of Don and Tara."

Remy raised an eyebrow. "Never thought of myself as a Don... I think I'll keep the name the Guild gave to me. Here's hoping_ mon pere_ and the rest are still walking above ground..."

* * *

It had been a long walk, but he was finally here.

Everything was in a state of disrepair, as if the people inside didn't really care about much.

It looked like they'd just come back from a long trip. The vehicle out front was still half-unpacked.

##

Remy quietly stood outside the run-down house for a few seconds.

He had thought about disguising his eyes, but they had been blood-red since birth.

Between that and his brown hair, they'd probably recognize him immediately.

"Mebbe ev'ryone on this Earth has eyes like mine," Remy chuckled. "How strange it'd be if here, I wasn't a mutant..."

No point in waiting. He walked past the beat up truck/camper and up the small steps.

If he believed the phone book in the booth he'd found, this was the right place.

He knocked on the door.

##

A short girl opened it. She looked human, with regular human eyes.

She frowned, then stated plainly: "You don't exist."

She put a hand on his chest, shoved him back a step, then slammed the door in his face.

He frowned, then knocked again.

She opened it. Just a crack.

"Please, listen to me," he said, then made a guess. "Tara..."

"No. I'm her cousin. Beth. We just left that selfish brat, may she rot, back in Cali_forn_ia."

"I see... This may sound strange, but I'm your cousin... Don..."

"No," she stated as she opened the door wider, revealing a young man with a shotgun. "He is."

"Oh. Allow me to start over..." Remy said, extending a hand to his brother. "My name is Remy LeBeau, but I believe we all share a mother-"

"Dad!" Don yelled.

The patriarch of the Maclay family walked into the room behind his relatives.

His jaw dropped.

Expressions flitted across his face, finally resulting in anger.

Mr. Maclay pushed Beth and Don out of the way, then stuck his reddened face directly in front of Remy's and began to yell: "I was told I'd never have to look at you again! Get off my property and-"

Remy suddenly moved his staff, a blur of speed, until it was just touching the older man's nose.

"Even though you're my papa, it's ne'er a good idea to yell at the man holdin' a big stick."

"Who is he?" Beth asked, frightened. "I thought the demon was just a lie they made up to keep Aunt Sam in line..."

"No," Don began. "It-"

Mr. Maclay turned and slapped Don in the back of the head.

Turning back to face the mutant, the older man snarled: "You can't be Samantha's missing spawn. That boy... You're too old to be him."

"I'm guessin' time must pass differently on dis side of reality..."

"You're just like that _witch_," Beth growled as she stepped between Mr. Maclay and the door. "Get out of here! Go back where you came from!"

She slammed the door in Remy's face, then turned and ran into her uncle's arms. "Oh, I was so scared, I-"

"You did the right thing, little darling, but those eyes... At first I thought he was his-"

He broke off when he heard a very familiar engine starting in the yard.

Mr. Maclay immediately grabbed the shotgun from his son and ran out the front door, just in time to see Remy driving away.

"That son-of-a-bitch hotwired my camper!"

* * *

Remy was going to have to ditch the trailer, pretty soon, but he needed to do something first.

When he was sure he was safe, he pulled over and began to search the vehicle.

Sure enough, on a map of Southern California stuffed between the seats, there was a small circle drawn in red ink and some words.

One of them was 'Tara'...

"Let's hope she takes after her mother more'n her dad."


	2. A Snitch and a Pair of Shoes

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

To avoid writer's block, I'm taking refuge in the surreal.

* * *

After having a cross-country adventure, which left him better acquainted with the nightlife of Tara's reality, Remy found himself in a building near the Sunnydale University campus outside his sister's door.

Tucking his shades into a pocket, Remy knocked, but he received no answer.

"You know, dis really isn't the kind of thing you leave a note for." He trailed off, hearing one of the doors behind him creak open.

"Hey, would you be looking for Tara?" a brown-haired man asked, stepping into the hallway. "She left a while ago. She was headed out to the local graveyard with a box of supplies for some kind of voodoo ritual or somethin'. Can't say I was paying that much attention."

"For some reason I'm not awfully surprised," Remy said.

"Yeah. Well, you'd probably be better off finding her then waiting here for her... Wait, who are you anyway?"

"The name is Remy. I used to know the family, but I've been out of touch for years. I just found out about her mother's death and, well... Now, do you really think it's a good idea to be tellin' complete strangers a young woman's whereabouts in the middle of the night?"

"The name's Rodney... Trust me. With the crowd she's taken to hanging out with lately, she can take care of herself."

"Hmm, well, thanks for the information." Remy shrugged and was turning to go when something else crossed his mind. "Wait. Graveyard? Anything specific I should keep an eye out for?"

"What? It's a graveyard. It's got tall angel statues. Crypts. You know, the general dead thing."

Remy nodded his thanks and walked away, whistling.

##

Sighing, Rodney shut the door. He sank into a chair and read for a few minutes, until the phone rang.

He looked up and smiled, muttering '10:00 on the dot' before answering the phone.

"Hey, Mr. Maclay? The answer is 'he has red eyes'. Can you wire over the rest of my bonus now?" Rodney drummed his fingers on the table as he listened to the response. "Yep. He was just here. Remember how you asked me to make his life slightly more difficult if I could? Well, I sent him on a wild goose chase into vampire territory.

"No, sir, your daughter's at some high school helping them set up for a play. No chance they will run into each other tonight. You know, when you first knocked on my door and asked me to be your eyes and ears in Sunnydale I had no idea it would be this lucrative. Tell you what... If you increase my 'wage' by twenty-five percent I'll spy on 'Remy' too. Assuming, of course, he survives the night."

* * *

_Given the life I've led_, Remy thought. _I wasn't too surprised to find undead in this dimension. This though..._

"I've seen the dead raised by pure rage. I've fought vampires both spiritual and viral. I've even come across supposed-to-be-random genetic mutations which mimic your kind too closely for it to be coincidence alone, but, buddy, ya take the cake. Clearly you've been hunting the night for, what, three decades? How is it that no-one's staked you yet?"

The red-eyed mutant stared down the six-foot-tall apparition in a puffy grey wig, a Saturday Night Fever era three-piece suit and extremely thick clear plastic shoes with large fish swimming in them.

"Dude!" the vampire stated, refusing to be intimidated. "This is a costume. You must be behind on your pop culture. Ain'cha ever heard of Disco Stu?"

"Wha? From the Simpsons?" Remy asked, eying the clothes with new understanding. "How do you expect to get any quality huntin' done? If you don' mind me asking. Think your victims will be laughing too hard t' run away?"

"Nah, right now I'm not out hunting," the vampire said, reaching down to push a hidden catch in his belt. "I'm just taking my pets for a walk."

With a loud click a hatch on each of the aquarium shoes opened up, spilling water onto the ground. The fish hovered in place, unaffected by the loss of the liquid, then flew out en masse to attack Remy with their sharp little demon teeth.

##

By the time the fish left the shoes, Remy was already in motion. He threw himself forward, holding his staff in front of him, hoping to dive under the wave of teeth.

His strategy worked as the fish were moving too quickly to react to his change in position, but a lucky one managed to sever a lock of his hair from his head.

Remy's eyes widened as he felt the tear.

He pulled himself to his feet and in one smooth motion, before the falling strands of hair could hit the ground, he pierced the chest of the vampire.

Grabbing the huge wig off the guy's head, leaving the metal staff half-way through the vampire's chest for the moment, Remy charged the hairpiece until it glowed with a blinding light.

The school of demon fish had regrouped by this point, so they sped forward again, aiming for the mutant's back.

"You do not mess with the hair." Remy snarled as he grabbed the vampire by the shoulders, holding the undead guy in place as he moved behind him. Using the vampire as a shield, Remy threw the charged wig into the midst of the oncoming fish.

After a short, gentle arc through the air, the wig exploded violently, drenching the vampire and the exposed parts of Remy in a hail of fish guts.

Feeling a touch on the back of his neck, the vampire stepped forward, grabbed the staff, pulled it from his chest and swiftly turned in pace, hitting Remy on the side of the head before he had a chance to react.

"What the heck did you do that for?" the vampire asked the stunned mutant, as he raised the staff to deliver another blow.

"Oh, I can charge zombies and make dem burst. Jus' seeing if you'd be affected. No offense meant."

"Sorry, pal. I heal. I'm not a shambling pile of dead flesh. Plus," he said, punctuating the words with a strike to Remy's legs. "Walking around Sunnydale with a metal bo? Not very smart. I mean if you were Leonardo maybe I'd be dust instead of hitting you in the head with a hole through my-"

The vampire's words were cut off as someone with a sword standing behind the vampire sliced cleanly through his neck.

The vampire's head had a chance to look surprised before it, his body and the rest of his faux-70's wardrobe puffed into a cloud of ash.

"Everybody knows Donatello had the stick," a short blonde figure said, apparently enjoying her momentary chance to tower above the prone mutant. "Don't you just hate when they forget the classics?"

"Thanks for the assist," Remy said as he pulled himself to a sitting position, the movement revealing what was charging in his right hand. "But his head wouldn't be in place even if you hadn't shown up. Dey call me Gambit."

"Buffy Summers," she said, angling the sword within striking distance of his exposed arm. "Now be a nice obvious-demon-yet-possible-champion-for-good and _put down the cards_."


	3. A Wall and a Swarm

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Basic blend of this x-meets-y critter drawn from Piers Anthony's Xanth, but a different kind of beast.

* * *

"Chère," Remy said, calmly. "Times like these, you have to ask yourself which is more important. Intimidating the unusual figure in front of you, or dispatching de pair of flying teeth headed for the back of your neck."

"Hmph," Buffy said and, without taking her eyes off the mutant, she pointed her sword skyward and took one swift step to the side.

The lone surviving demon fish passed directly through the space the Slayer's neck had occupied a moment before, with such speed that the sharp, thin edge of the sword bisected it cleanly.

The two halves of the fish went on a bit farther before falling gently apart and sliding to a halt in the grass.

Remy took the moment to rise to his feet.

##

Without his trademark boots, he would be six-foot-one.

In bare feet she would be five-foot-three.

Somehow he knew that wouldn't make her back down from a fight.

##

"Let's see," she said, smiling faintly. "Defend myself or intimidate you? Something tells me I've just done both."

Conceding the point, he returned the cards to his jacket.

"I was jus' looking for a relative of mine," he stated. "Someone who might be doin' spells here at night with a Southern flavor?"

"Can't say I have. Let me ask you, is absolutely important you find them tonight?"

"Not as such, jus' somethin' I-"

"Good, 'cause just over that hill, me and a few of my friends are trying to break into something in order to help save the world. You've just been recruited to help us."

"Oh?"

"Not to mention, that if you don't come I'll have to assume it's because you don't want my friends to recognize you or your kind and, trust me," she said with a smile and something cold in her eyes. "You won't like me when I'm suspicious."

* * *

Remy crested the hill, only to be met with the incongruous sight of a teenage Jean Grey trying to bash a hole in a wall with a sledgehammer.

He blinked and the resemblance faded.

"Wouldn't it be easier to try the doors," he asked, gesturing to the side of the crypt opposite the wall the redhead was working on.

"Sorry, no can do," said a dark-haired man sprawled in the grass. "The wall inside's thicker. Believe it or not, there was a door here, with a stairway leading down, just a bit ago. Someone messed up, the door went poof, and now we're trying to get in the hard way. Well, now that our resident strongwoman's decided to show up, we can get in faster."

"Hey, at least I was softening it up for her," the redhead panted as she set the hammer down. "Xander wanted to wait until after you got back from investigating the explosions, but I said... Hello, hotness!"

"Well, actually, it was more like 'Every little bit helps,' but I," Xander said, trailing off as he followed his friend's gaze. "Willow!" he yelled, jumping to his feet. "You're gay. And taken. And, did I mention, gay?"

"What? I can look."

"Don't be so hard on your friend," Remy said, smiling. "If you don't mind Gambit saying so, there be much to look at."

##

Rolling her eyes, Buffy walked between Willow and Remy, headed towards the sledgehammer. She paused midstep and handed her sword over to Xander.

"Cover this guy," she said, frowning. "For all we know, he's working with whomever's trapped in there with Giles."

"Now don't get cocky, just cause you've got a big stick and all," Xander said, attempting to threaten the older man. "Uh, who are you anyway?"

Remy frowned and leaned against his staff. "People keep asking me dat," he said, raising his voice over the blows of the hammer. "Each time I reply I'm less and less sure of the answer. I mean, I'm still me. I've always been me, gen'rally speaking. Just less sure of my place in the world. Can't define myself by the people who know me, if I may ne'er see dem again."

"Ah, existentialism." Xander nodded. "I get that. Try thinking that you know who you are for a night, only to wake up and know that not only had you gone for a few hours without a name, what you'd felt to be a full past was nothing but a blank slate."

"Who hasn't at one time or another? Name's Remy LeBeau," Remy said, extending a hand and a smile. "Or at least it's s'pposed to be. Y'see I was, eh, raised by a large organization that laid the name on me. I'm here in dis town on the trail of the birth sister I never knew I had. Her name's-"

"We're through," Buffy yelled, dropping the hammer to the ground with a thud.

She had time to bend down and heft a particularly large chunk of wall out of the way before the first of the spiders spilled out onto the grass.

##

Buffy's first reaction was to try and push the largest chunk of wall back in to place.

When several fangs came way too close to her hands she abandoned the effort and backflipped out of the way of the swarm.

As far as animals went, the spiders were on the smallish side, each about the size of a half-grown housecat or a particularly large rat. As far as spiders went...

A particularly large one ran directly towards Gambit and launched itself into the air with a large screech.

A kinetically-charged card met it halfway and exploded, showering that little patch of graveyard with suspiciously mammalian guts.

This didn't particularly faze the next spider, who suffered the same gruesome fate.

"Is Gambit seeing things," Remy murmured, as he aimed another card at the stairwell and the center of the swarm. "Or did dat just have a tail?"

##

"Here, Buffy," shouted Willow as she concentrated on the sledgehammer. "Catch."

Xander stayed in front of Willow, spearing any spiders that came close enough.

The hammer rose in mid-air, shook off several chittering passengers and swung itself towards Buffy. She caught it nicely and began squishing spiders around the edge.

"Now Gambit must be seeing things," Remy said, in an even lower tone.

##

Many of the spiders were trying to web the entrance shut, but each time they got close to sealing it off completely another card would fly their way, forcing them to start over.

The spiders trying to fix the wall outnumbered those on the ground by two-to-one; Remy wasn't about to let them finish the job and join forces with their more aggressive brethren.

##

"Yeah, I got a sword," Xander said in a fairly loud voice, speaking mainly to himself. "But I really want to throw fireballs. And, look at Buffy, if I was using a hammer that large I'd be swinging it half as fast." He frowned as he raised his sword to eye level. "I mean, I... Agh! It's got a face, it's got a face!"

Xander backed up a few steps, rammed the sword into the dirt and tried to scrape the impaled eight-eyed corpse off the blade with his shoe.

"Well, I'm just glad I don't have monkey fear," Willow said as she levitated a large chunk of stone until it was within arm's reach.

##

"My first day in town, and I'm fighting _monkey spiders_, alongside yet another _telekinetic_ redhead," Remy said, shaking his head. "Dis is going to be a long night."


	4. A Couple of Names and a Katamari

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Katamari Damacy, produced by Namco, loosely translates as 'Spirit of Clutter'. The closest I can get to that in Latin is 'Soul of Covering', so here you go.

* * *

Deep down below Remy's feet, two people sat, trapped in separate cages.

_This is the best night of my life_, wrote the younger of the two prisoners._ Not only have I found the path to becoming a great summoner, even greater than my brother, I have seen true magic first hand. I have also met a man who surely must be a master of the dark arts. He will either be my_ Yoda, _or the first Obi-Wan I crush under my heel as I move towards the goal of __**towering dark power**__._

"Bloody Hell," announced his neighbor, quite interrupting the narrative flow. "This night is bad enough without you humming the Star Wars theme song... What are you writing anyway?"

"Oh, just updating my journal," the younger man said, lifting up the notebook. He made sure as he did so that his thumb covered the words 'Property of Andrew Wells' on the cover. "So, what happens next, Mr. Warlock? How long do I have to wait before I walk out of here with my crystal?"

"Oh, for the _last time_," came the frustrated reply. "I am not a warlock. My name is Rupert Giles and I am a formally trained member of the International Council of Watchers. I came down to this place on official business, not as a simple dabbler in the dark arts, and you have ruined something that should otherwise have gone quite smoothly."

"Ah," said Andrew as he crossed out the word '_Yoda_' in his journal. "I see."

"Well, frankly," Giles said, adjusting his glasses. "We have until sunrise to escape. I'm not exactly sure what would happen if we're still here at that time, but I expect we'd be trapped, body and soul, in one of those _blank _crystals along that wall."

"Ah," repeated Andrew as he looked in the direction that Giles was pointing. "Dibs on the sapphire blue one."

* * *

Wlllow touched the floating rock gently with one finger. When it started spinning in mid-air she chanted the words '_Contine, anima theca_'.

The rock glowed purple and fell to the ground with a thunk. The first monkey spider it bumped into started glowing purple as well and found itself quite stuck to the still rolling rock.

Within a few seconds the rock was hidden beneath a covering of annoyed monkey spiders. A few seconds later, the first layer of monkey spiders was hidden beneath a second layer.

Xander stepped back from his attempt to clean his sword and cheered, until the ball grabbed ahold of the monkey spider corpse impaled on the weapon and rolled off, taking the blade with it.

"Hey," he said, frowning. "My sword! Oh well, at least it's fun to watch," he conceded. "They should so totally make a game out of that."

Having gathered up the spiders on the grass, the somewhat lopsided ball, with the sword still sticking out the side, spun in place until it blurred with speed.

Suddenly the ball launched itself forward and hit the wall with enough force that some of its collected spiders went flying.

It kept on spinning right up the wall until it was high enough to collect the spiders still trying to web the hole shut, before sinking back down to the grass.

The monkey spiders that had been knocked off the ball lay on their backs, twitching, still glowing faintly purple. The ball collected them before they had a chance to recover.

Lacking any further targets, the ball just sat there twitching.

"Well," Xander asked Willow. "Can I get it back now?"

"Sure," she replied. "The ball's not big enough to get a firm grip on the sword or you, yet. So you should just be able to pull it out."

##

Xander walked forward and, using one foot to compress some of the struggling spiders, pulled the sword out cleanly.

With a wide grin, he backed away from the ball.

"Wait," he said as he turned to face Willow, his feeling of triumph short-lived. "What do you mean, _yet_?"

##

"Please tell me those things aren't normal 'round these parts or I'll be even more worried for your sanity," Remy said, spotting a lull in the action. "More important, the one thing dat Gambit really wants to know is, given you're here because your friend's trapped, what was he doing down there in the first place?"

"This is the crypt," Willow said. "Of, well, either a single powerful witch named Maddox, or the tomb of the Maddox clan of crystal witches. The records were kinda vague on that part."

Buffy entered the hole first with Remy on her heels, although the taller man had to duck.

"Giles came down here to plea for help during the one time in a decade that the place is open for business," Buffy said as she descended the narrow staircase. "Careful, it's steep."

"There someone here giving things away," Remy asked. He paused mid-step, feeling the back of his neck tingle. "There a particular reason you're pointing that sword at my neck, or is just how you treat all the strange men you find in graveyards?"

"You're superpowered," Xander said, holding the sword in place. "Yet you look mostly human. You have a full name, yet you keep calling yourself Gambit. It just occurred to me how much that sounds like... _Glory_."

"I hear what you say," Remy said, examining his position half in and half out of the hole and determined it not good with Buffy on the stairs in front of him. "Dat supposed to mean something?"

"Oh," Willow said, looking over Xander's shoulder. "I see where he's going with this. You said something about being in town for your sister? Well, we've been receiving death threats from a strong blonde in high heels and we're natually jumpy because they could be the same person."

"How am I supposed to know if Tara has a codename," Remy asked rhetorically. "I haven't met her yet."

"Good point," Xander said and lowered the sword. "Wait... _What_?"

* * *

Several blocks away, in front of the building where Remy had first thought to look for his sister, a young blonde woman stepped out of a car.

"Hey, Tara," called the driver. "Get some rest. Remember you're on stage tomorrow."

"Yeah," chuckled someone from the back seat. "Break a leg."

Smiling, Tara waved as she entered the dorm.

She was happy she'd been able to carpool from Grant High, where the high school's drama club was putting on a small joint production with Sunnydale U.

The college students mainly helped out in the areas of costume creation and set design, including lighting effects, but she was one of the few this year to be acting alongside the younger generation. If only for a few lines, near the end of the play.

##

Once she was at the right floor, she walked to her dorm room.

When her hand was on the knob, the feeling that something had changed froze her in place.

Turning around she saw what it was. The light leaking out from under a door across the hall from her was gone, as if someone inside had flipped the switch as soon as her back was turned.

After picturing someone standing inside, in the dark, staring at her through the peephole, she shivered and quickly entered her own room, locking the door behind her.

* * *

After turning to face the people who had been threatening him a few seconds before, Remy grinned at their reactions.

Xander hadn't said much past the initial question and was staring at the mutant with a slightly lopsided expression on his face.

"Great," Willow said. "It's like someone just handed me a present without a nametag and I have to decide whether to keep it, or pass it around, or unwrap it to see whose it is."

"Ah," said Remy. "So you do know _ma soeur_. Finally, I was having the feeling this trip would be for nothing. Other than helping my new 'friend' save the world, of course," he hastily amended as he heard Buffy ascend the stairs behind him.

Since she'd spoke, Willow's face had been progressively getting redder and redder.

"What's going on," asked Buffy. "Did-"

"Not that there'd be any unwrapping on my part, _no, sir_," Willow exclaimed suddenly. "I mean, not me unwrapping you... Or me! Unless I was unwrapping myself in front of your sister!"

"_What_?" asked a startled Remy.

Xander shook himself back to alertness and stood with his shoulders straight.

"Dawn? Why," Buffy started to ask, before Xander mouthed Tara's name and pointed at Remy. "Oh... Ah. _Oh_?"

##

"Breathe, Willow," Xander said, with a light touch on the witch's shoulders. "Just breathe."


	5. An Elemental and a Set of Doubts

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

"So, would you be related to Tara through her bastard of a father," Willow asked. "Or is she your-?"

"Am I a bastard, myself, you mean? Well, I was an orphan until a bit ago," Remy interrupted with an edge to his tone. "So I'm not used to thinking about myself in those terms. Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I've had hopes that my real family... Cared that I wasn't there. Now that I've met the men s'posed to be my dad and my brother, I have the feeling I'd have turned out mean and hateful myself if I'd grown up there. I've no idea about my mother..."

"She was wonderful," Willow said. "Or, so I've heard. And my... Tara... She's-"

"Tara's awesome," Xander stated, patting Willow's shoulder. "She's the best thing to happen to my friend here in... Well, since..."

"For de love of... Please tell Gambit there be no love triangle goin' on here," Remy said, holding his head. "I've been through one or two and you remindin' me of a friend o' mine who's had at least three, one with herself as de 'other woman', just does not bode well."

"Oh," said Willow. "No, nothing... current."

"As interesting as this is, we need to keep moving," Buffy said firmly as she turned back around. "Keep talking, but do it single-file. We need to get to Giles and hope that we can walk out of this mess with everybody alive and the prettily packaged arsenal we came here for."

##

"Assuming this Glory woman be an ongoing problem," Remy said, putting the clues together as he eased himself down the narrow staircase. "And dat she's out to damage the world greatly, we're down here to stop her, right? If this Giles of yours is trying to save the town where my Tara has put down roots, I'm obliged to help, even without the occasional threat of bodily harm."

"Yeah," Buffy said, pausing a moment to turn her head. "But they're fun. So, how'd you wind up here?"

"That's a bit... Complicated," Remy said. "Well, word came from a friend that Tara and I at least have the same mother... This Tara Maclay we're talking 'bout here, right? Shame to go through all this awkwardness for nothing."

"Yep, that's my... One and only... Um... How'd it work out for your friend," Willow asked from the steps above them, having decided to resolve something that had been bothering her. "The one with more love triangles than you?"

"She died several times," the Cajun said with a sigh. "Or near enough to it. Sometimes it resolved the love triangle, but it usually just delayed it. Right now she's dead and... she's staying that way."

* * *

Andrew and Giles were steadfastly ignoring each other when a crystal fell to the ground and exploded with a loud pop. Smoke from the crystal's fragments resolved into a large humanoid shape, which shambled down the hallway, gaining definition as it went.

Before they could decide what it was turning into, it turned a corner, moving quite out of sight.

"So, classically these challenges come in threes," Andrew said. "Think the last one will be a swarm like the first one, or-"

"Yes, but, these witches were fairly economically minded. The only crystals at risk here are my purple one," Giles said, rubbing the rock he'd slipped into his front pocket. "And your green one. I don't expect they'd risk more than two to try and keep them.

"Unfortunately, not only are these next to useless without the proper activation and binding spells, there's only one copy available for us to use," Giles continued, pointing towards a sheet of paper floating in mid-air above a pedestal. "Meaning we'd have to share it. And, as you can see, it's quite out of reach."

"Oh, so, that's the missing piece," Andrew said, smiling. "I can help with that. I packed my dungeoneering gear, so I should have a telescoping pole somewhere in here..."

As Giles raised an eyebrow, Andrew started digging through his backpack. His hand closed slightly around the lighter he'd thrown in with the rest of his stuff.

Sighing, Andrew forced his hand to relax and he moved on to a more vigorous search.

Between his slight dislike of Giles and the vague disappointment he'd felt about the lack of a third challenge, the news that there was only one instruction sheet in the room resolved something in Andrew's mind.

It was only a matter of putting the plan into practice.

He had decided to create the last challenge himself.

* * *

Remy wasn't sure how he felt about his sister being involved with Willow. Then again, not knowing what his sister was like in the first place didn't give him much room to form an opinion.

He wasn't exactly sure about the group Tara was spending time with, either. From what he'd gathered, Buffy or the so far unseen 'Giles', was the leader and they, as far as they knew, were on the side of good. Whether they used methods he'd find acceptable or if they were people who met their goals no matter what the cost, was something he'd have to find out for himself.

He'd expected Tara to be working with magic, from what he'd heard in her dorm... which was also where he'd heard that he had a good chance of finding her at work in a cemetery.

"Should've asked this sooner," Remy said to Buffy. "But, have you seen Tara tonight?"

"Nope."

"Well, how many cemeteries in walking distance?"

"Five," she answered. She raised an eyebrow, but he couldn't see it from his position. "If you extend that to the town limits and keep the list to the 'official' ones, there's twelve, including this one."

"_Riiiight_," he said, wishing that he had someone he could talk to freely.

On reaching the lowest floor, Buffy and Remy peered down the corridor, noting as they did so that the torches on the wall magically lit.

##

"So," Willow whispered to Xander. "You think he's working for Glory?"

"Nope," came his reply. "This feels like something the mayor would've done, but I haven't seen much long term planning on her part. She did that snake ritual the day she bought the items, right?"

"Yeah, and he is older than us, which makes more sense," Willow said. "We all have pasts, right?"

"On the other hand, it could just be that Glory called in some smarter help," Xander said, turning his head over his shoulder. He stumbled slightly as he stepped out into the room at the foot of the stairs.

##

Hearing Xander and Willow reach the end of the stairs, Remy turned to face them. This meant that his first impression of the monster was a hand swinging for the side of his head.

Being knocked down gave him a chance to enjoy the architecture.

The floor was densely packed earth, but the walls were wooden and of a quality seen in well-made cabins. There were wooden arms hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of what appeared to be a network of tracks.

Overall, the place gave more of the impression of a haunted library or an assembly plant than an underground crypt.

##

Shaking his head slightly, Remy sprang to his feet in a smooth motion. Whatever it was had to have been moving extremely fast in order to get behind him that quickly.

When he turned and saw that Buffy was holding her own, if not exactly making headway, he wasn't exactly surprised.

The creature had a soft translucent upper body, but its feet looked as hard and as cold as stone. Each time Buffy hit it, her fist sunk in slightly and bounced off faster than when it went in, as if the creature had the skin of a tightly stretched drum.

Its punches didn't seem to be doing much damage individually, but it had one thing going for it. It was extremely fast.

Within a few seconds, Buffy's body was sore and she knew she'd be a mass of bruises for awhile until her healing factor kicked in.

Fortunately there didn't seem much else the creature could do to her, until its punches started slowing down. It was hitting her less and less often, but with a rapid increase in force.

Remy noticed that the creature's arms appeared to be getting more and more solid as the greyish color of its legs traveled up length of its body. In fact, the arms were losing their soft and rounded shape, becoming more chiseled and angular.

The creature spun and, in a sudden punch, knocked Buffy half-way across the room.

"De thing's turning to stone," Remy called. "Gambit don't think this will be a pillow fight no more."

"It's an Elemental," Willow shouted. "I haven't seen this kind before, but it must be channeling whatever it comes into contact with."

##

Remy locked eyes with Buffy from across the room and yelled: "You want to take dis high or low?"

"High," Buffy shouted and began charging towards the elemental.

Before the elemental could shift its focus back to Remy, he was already next to it, smacking it across the back of its legs with his staff.

Buffy launched herself in the air, landing a kick with both feet in the center of the elemental's chest.

The creature's firmer, denser skin was unable to redirect blows as well as it had when it was mostly channeling air, so the kick hit with full force.

At the same time, the blow to the back of the legs shifted the creature's weight forward suddenly, such that the difference in solidity between its upper and lower halves made it bend in a way that it just wasn't supposed to. Many of the veins of stone which had been creeping up the elemental's body simply shattered with loud cracks.

The elemental skidded across the floor, slamming into a wall with a loud crash.

##

Their happiness was short-lived, however, as the elemental rose to its feet and, on reaching for a torch, set its hands on fire.


	6. A Patch of Floor and a Hard Won Prize

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

"Blast," said Giles. "Clearly the collapsible pole isn't in the bag, it's strapped to the side of it. Now, maybe if you stopped that ridiculous searching, you could start working on retrieving the parchment, so we can summon our own creature to get us out of here."

From his own, separate, cage, Andrew looked across at Giles with a cold glare.

"It's a pole," Andrew stated. "That's a piece of paper floating in mid-air. Maybe, if I stretched, I could knock it off the pedestal, but there's no guarantee it wouldn't just drift away, far out of reach. We don't need a pole. We need a spear."

##

"Or," Giles offered, adjusting his glasses. "You could make a loop with your shoelaces."

"Huh."

* * *

As the elemental stepped forward threateningly, Buffy instinctively winced and touched her hair.

"Charcoal is definitely not a fashion statement I want to make," she said, eying the creature warily.

"I got this," Remy announced, stepping forward and shoving his staff into the elemental's chest. "Can't hurt me if you can't touch me."

The elemental grabbed its end of the staff with both burning hands.

As the metal heated up, becoming uncomfortably warm on Remy's end, the mutant sent a faint kinetic charge into his staff, but thought better of it and quickly stopped.

Stepping back suddenly, Remy pulled the staff from the monster's grip and stuck the end under its chin.

Xander saw his chance to help and ran forward, sweeping the monster's legs out from under it with his sword.

Thanks to the pressure Remy was putting under its chin, the elemental went down in a crash and stayed on the ground as Remy adjusted his weight. The metal began to heat up again, but not as quickly, because the fiery colors of the elemental were quickly fading to gray.

"It gets stronger as it turns to stone," Xander asked. "Right? Well, I don't think my blade can make rock shish-kebab but if it turns to wood, we can start nicking chunks out of it."

"Thanks for de assist, but move!" Remy yelled to Xander, who nodded and retreated to the safety of the stairs.

##

Noting that the wooden ceiling above him was free of arms - and that the monster was becoming harder and harder to hold in place - Remy threw some kinetically charged cards upwards and dove out of the way.

The cards hit the center of the large square bare patch and exploded.

Rather than breaking apart in a shower of kindling, as Remy had expected, the section of ceiling came down as a single solid piece.

When the dust cleared, Remy was shocked to see a human clinging to the surface of the boards.

"No-one said dis place had a second story," Remy said, looking up at the room above him through the gaping hole he'd made in its floor. "Those bars I see form a cage?"

"Giles?" Willow asked, surprised.

##

Giles looked up, as the elemental pinned to the floor by the boards he was sprawled on shifted its weight, moving him from side to side as well.

"Thank you for the rescue," Giles said, warily. "But I seem to be on top of something strong. Quite strong... Any tactical advantage in my position, or should I follow my first instinct and get clear?"

"Dog pile," Xander shouted and threw himself forward onto the boards, where he was shortly joined by Buffy, Willow and Remy.

"Shouldn't you," Giles said as he was rocked back and forth by the pinned elemental. "You know, be attacking it, or something?"

"First thing to try," Remy answered. "When fighting a mimic is to feed it something it may not like."

"Hey," Buffy asked as she held on to the wide piece of floor. "You come through the fall okay?"

"As well as can be considered," Giles said. "I must say I preferred the stairs on the way up."

"Yeah, about dat," Remy commented. "Dis is gettin' ridiculous. You keep sayin' the place is witch construction, but what Gambit want to know is: where'd dey get the big spending budget?"

"Government spending," Giles said. "Local government. Our Mayor... Well," he continued, tilting his head to look Remy in the eyes. "This is awkward. What the bloody hell are you?"

Before Remy could respond, the trapped elemental punched upward, the boards split and everyone went flying to the sides.

##

Buffy was up and on her feet first.

Remy and Giles tied for third.

Unfortunately, the elemental came in second.

##

Buffy took stock of the elemental, noticing how the construct's front half was wooden, while its palms and back were stone. Even as she watched, the linear facial features softened as the creature worked more air into its system.

Deciding Buffy was the greater threat, the elemental reached down by the still woozy Xander, grabbed the sword and charged for the Slayer.

Willow rolled over and, with a muttered 'Impedi', sent a tendril of energy coursing towards some debris near the elemental's leg.

She pulled, the creature tripped and the sword went flying.

##

Giles brushed himself off and started running down the narrow corridor towards the second set of stairs.

"I'll be right back," he yelled over his shoulder. "Hopefully with summoned reinforcements."

##

After sprinting upstairs, Giles ran into the heart of the complex. Absently noting that his former cellmate was still safely locked in the second cage, Giles turned his full attention to the pedestal where he'd last seen the spells he needed to...

There was nothing on the pedestal but a pile of ash.

##

Giles stood, looking in mute horror at the burnt remains. His fists clenched and unclenched several times.

He spun on his heel and, grabbing the bars of the cage, yelled into Andrew's face: "What did you do?"

"There was a third challenge," Andrew said with a sigh, adjusting the backpack strapped to his shoulders. "I think it must have been about humility. My attempt to retrieve the spell paper without raising the bars of the cage... No, wait, that's charity. Right?"

"You're saying that," Giles said, walking over to a lever on the far wall. "The parchment was spelled to explode if someone on the outside showed that they valued it more than the life of another," he continued, pulling the lever. The cages in the room raised towards the ceiling. "As shown by them reaching for it, before pulling this?"

"Exactly," Andrew said, evaluating his newfound freedom and the expression on Giles' face. As soon as the word had left his mouth, Andrew dove for the hole in the floor Remy's cards had made.

##

Giles blinked and ran forward, frowning in a mix of disapproval and anger as he realized he had moved a second too late...

Andrew gripped the side of the hole and lowered himself down, before dropping the last two feet to the floor.

Brushing himself off, he turned and found himself face to face with the elemental.

Andrew screamed like a girl, punched the monster in the face and, cradling his bruised knuckles with his other hand, bolted for the stairs leading to the surface.

Luckily for him, because the elemental had been absorbing air for several minutes he hadn't broken his fist.

##

Buffy took advantage of the distraction to run up and slide the blade of the sword through where the stone half and the wood half of the elemental met.

She put pressure on turning the hilt sideways as Remy ran up and jammed his staff into the gap she'd made.

The creature's air-infused skin stretched like jelly, but it proved to be no match for the force the Slayer and the mutant were putting in place.

With a snap, the elemental's front half fell forward as a single block. When it hit the ground, its back half crumbled into large pile of earth.

Giles peered down at the room from the hole in its ceiling and winced, because Andrew had already escaped.

"Blast," he snarled. "I didn't even get his name."

##

Sensing the elemental's death, several of the wooden arms above Giles began lowering crystals through the hole to the wooden arms in the entrance to the crypt.

The arms rolled on their tracks, presenting prizes to those present.

The crystals in front of Remy and Buffy were blue; hers a shade lighter. Xander's shone gold and the crystal in front of Willow was a fire engine red.

"Don't touch any of them," Giles quickly yelled. "Or you'll be thrown in a cage, I'll be thrown in a cage and three more crystals will be activated in defense of this place. It might be two more monsters or sets of monsters, seeing as how our erstwhile and nameless 'friend' has escaped, but without a safe way to control anything we do manage to summon, it's just not worth the risk in the slightest."

"You mean that guy just stole something," Xander asked. "Let's go and-"

"No," Giles sighed. "No. He just destroyed a parchment with activation and binding spells, the only one this crypt will produce this decade. All he left with is a crystal containing something that the crypt picked out for him, something that the crypt sensed could be used by him to further his goals. However, even if he does somehow manage to release whatever's trapped inside, without the binding spells it's quite likely to become his worst nightmare."

* * *

Far above them, Andrew fell, panting, out of the hole in the wall onto the grass of the graveyard.

He rose to his feet and stumbled onward. When he felt he was quite out of sight of the opening, he collapsed again.

Rolling over, he struggled with the straps of his backpack. When it was clear of his body he reached inside.

One hand brushed the lighter he'd used to set the piece of notebook paper aflame.

The other hand rested on the pole he'd used to set the burning piece of paper on the pedestal.

"This is what separates us from monkeys," Andrew said to himself. "Putting ourselves in someone else's shoes, understanding false belief and," he continued aloud as he pulled from his backpack a very special sheet of spell-inscribed parchment. "Turning it to our advantage."

* * *

Remy suddenly started laughing. He'd received somewhat of a beating, so the laughter wasn't as deep as it could have been, but it was heartfelt.

"Huh," Willow asked. "What's so funny?"

"Oh," Remy said, barely managing to contain himself. "And t' think I was actually worried you guys would be eye on the prize types, so completely out for success and fer the 'greater good' you'd do anything at all t' succeed."


	7. A Mutant and a Face to Face Meeting

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

"Look," Xander stated firmly, once Remy's laughter had died to a chuckle. "The small stuff we wipe out without a second thought. The big stuff we rally against. It's only the middle stuff that creeps by us sometimes. When we try, we save the world."

"Five apocalypses and counting," Willow added.

"Besides, this wasn't our only hope," Xander said. "This was just our last effort to mine the local resources before calling help from Giles' home team."

"Well," Willow said, counting on her fingers. "At least four..."

"No," Remy said with a smile. "It's not so much that Remy saw you fail and accept it, it's more that, even though you could see de anger written all over your Giles' face about th' boy wrecking your plans... You could tell from his hangdog expression that he's genuinely worried for the kid as well, hopin' he doesn't burn himself from playin' with stuff he do not understand."

##

Buffy was leaning on the sword, evaluating Remy, when Giles emerged from the narrow passageway behind her.

"Well," the Watcher asked. "What did I miss?"

"Meet Tara's big brother," Buffy said, gesturing at the mutant.

"Ah?"

"The good one, apparently."

"I see."

##

"I'm pleased to meet a relative of someone who's been such an asset to our, ah, group," Giles said as he approached Remy, offering his hand. "I'm Rupert Giles and I... haven't exactly heard anything about you from Tara."

"De name's Remy LeBeau," Remy said, shaking the Watcher's hand firmly. "And there's likely a good reason for that, seeing as how I haven't met her yet."

Remy went on to explain the bare minimum of facts, leaving out that he'd grown up in another reality where mutants were common.

"So, basically," Giles said. "This fellow who's been watching you all your life... Who looks remarkably like you, shows up and tells you that you have a sister?"

"More like he told me I had a family, but, yeah."

"Out of the blue. No reason given for why now, as it's apparent you've been old enough to understand for some time?"

"De network of family and friends I've built up for myself is... stable... but my girl, y'know, the one who was my girl, she's with them," Remy said, trailing off with a sigh. "No, no reason given why he came to me now, other than that I was free to start lookin'."

"And you are telling me." Giles adjusted his glasses. "That it never once occurred to you that he could be your father?"

"Heh." Remy gave his head a slight shake. "When he talked about my 'birth family' he said they'd abandoned me. He definitely not done that."

"Well... Worth a hope. No point in hanging out in a crypt for the rest of the night. So, there's this magic shop in town. Why don't we head up there and see about getting things sorted?"

"Dey open twenty-four hours?"

"Ah," Giles said, patting his pocket. "I have the keys."

* * *

The ride to the Magic Box was uneventful, with Remy mostly talking about his road trip from the Maclay house to Sunnydale. As Buffy had early morning plans with her boyfriend and wanted to make a last sweep of the area before heading home, they had left her behind.

"Well, first things first," Giles said as he opened the door and ushered the group inside. "What exactly are you, Remy? From your eyes I would expect you to be one of two demon species... At least in part. The Jaffa are a known friend to humanity and come by the... red coal look naturally; while the Branstons are a slightly more aggressive yet mercantile people, who acquire such changes voluntarily as sort of a magical tattoo."

From his position behind Remy's back, Xander smirked and opened a drawer.

When Willow looked in and saw a blue, open box of Jaffa Cakes next to a half-eaten jar of Branston Sweet Pickle, she barely managed to suppress a giggle.

Remy, for his part, sighed.

##

"Well," Remy said. "I was hoping to put this off longer, but... I'm human. There, I said it, it's out in the open. No magical bloodlines in me. I'm just a mutant."

"Ah," said Giles, nodding. "Reports sift through the Council occasionally of sudden, inexplicable changes occurring within otherwise human families. I believe the most recent case was of a young girl who had to wear an insulated jacket and oven mitts for fear of electrocuting those around her."

"Oh," Remy said. "Really? Then Gambit may not be as special as he thought."

"Buffy had mentioned your talent for, as she put it, _making things go 'splodey_. Would that be a natural consequence of your mutation, or do you supplement it with magical skill?"

"Yeah, dat would be something I come by naturally. In fact I've made... When I was younger I took some pretty severe steps to limit the kinetic power flow, fer fear of things getting out of hand. That's mainly in the past. And, as to the question of magical capability... Well, you wouldn't mind if a guy decided to hold some cards close to his chest?"

"I guess not," Giles answered. Frowning, he stared into the eyes of the brown-haired man, an easy task as they were about the same height.

As far as apparent emotions and character went, he wasn't sure he liked what he saw.

##

Xander took the opportunity to pull Willow to the side, deeper into the store's shelves.

"Think we should run this guy by Spike's crypt," Xander asked in a low whisper. "See if he'd scan as human or not?"

"Considering that Spike would have to hit him to tell, making that his second Maclay of the month," she replied, trailing off as a flurry of emotions crossed her face, "Ah, maybe we should schedule it for tomorrow night. Or the afternoon. Or..."

"I know," Xander said. He touched her hand, knowing her expression meant she was thinking of Tara. "I know. This isn't simple."

* * *

Buffy laid in bed, tossing and turning.

She woke well before sunrise.

Once in her upstairs hallway, she paused a second to lean against the doorframe of her mother's room and stare in at the empty bed.

##

On a grassy hill, under a tree a short jog from her house, she laid out a large blanket.

By the time she had finished spreading the wrinkles out from the corners, her boyfriend was there, leaning against the tree and watching her.

"Riley," she said, looking up with a smile. "Thanks for doing this so early on a Friday."

"Hey," he said, brushing up against her as they stretched out on the blanket. "I'm helpful. Are you holding up well?"

"Sorta," she said, rolling over so she could stare into his blue eyes. "We're kind of in a holding pattern. Things would be easier if we could have her at home while we're waiting for them to plan things... but we're not there yet. This is rough on Dawn too."

"That's your family," he said as the sun rose. "What about you?"

"I'm losing sleep. I barely got any last night. I can patrol okay, but... I feel guilty about taking time out for myself, with mom in the hospital. I wanted to plan this for when I knew she'd be asleep... As much as you can be when you're surrounded by nurses and patients, I mean."

"It's okay. She doesn't want you wearing yourself out with worry, any more than I do."

"I've been trying to take it easy, but last night's mission that was supposed to be more of a diplomatic thing went all pear-shaped and turned into an action scene... And Tara has a new brother."

"Oh? I'm happy for her," Riley said. "How old?"

* * *

At the Espresso Pump, Tara sipped her coffee as she stared at Willow across the table. For some reason, her girlfriend was practically bouncing in her seat.

"Alright," Tara said, raising an eyebrow. "You wake me up, tell me to get dressed in a hurry and have us waiting out here ten minutes before the doors opened. You haven't said much of anything since then, so I-"

"It's not that we're waiting for someone," Willow interrupted. "They're already here. It's more like he's waiting for me to talk to to you and I'm not sure if I want to go off what's in my head or wait until I think it out a bit more."

"Honey," Tara said, scanning the room as much as she could without visibly turning her head. "It's okay. Breathe."

"Okay," Willow said, visibly making an effort to relax. "It's just that... You know how in comic books how when a new hero comes to town there's initial mistrust between him and the hero who lives there, but then they fight together against a common enemy and decide they're both basically nice guys? Except in this case, it's more of a covering for unresolved issues, that may resolve themselves... I found a new family member. For us. You. He's older than you'd think, but..."

"So," Tara said, warily. "You found a teenage superhero and you want to adopt him?"

"Ahem," came a masculine voice from behind her. "This be taking longer than I thought."

Tara spun around to find herself face to face with a lined green shirt, stretched over a broad chest, above a pair of black slacks.

"De name is Remy LeBeau," he said. "But I've good reason t' believe I'm your long-lost brother."

She looked up, and up, into the face of a smiling brown-haired man.

"Wow," she said. "You look just like mom."

"The eyes," he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No," she said, shaking her head hurriedly. "Those are new."

"Ah."

##

"Sweetie." Tara reached across the table, resting her hand on top of Willow's. "I trust you enough that you wouldn't have brought him here unless you thought he was safe-"

"I'm sorry, _ma chérie_," Remy said, pulling another chair up to the table. "Gambit be a lot of things, but ne'er safe."

Tara gave him an odd look.

"It's okay, he says things like that," Willow said. "Or, at least I think he does. I've only known him since last night myself."

"I'm sorry if I come on strong," Remy said. "I'm not sure how to do this. I know how to talk someone back from the brink of amnesia by remarking on things I know are dear to their hearts and mine, but we _genuinely_ don't know each other. What's killing me is the fact that we _should_. All we got t' tie us together is blood. I jus' hope that be enough t' build something larger on."

"So," Tara asked, after a pause. "You speak French? I've studied Latin - it helps with spells - so I understand a little by way of it. Very little."

"I come by it naturally," he said. "By way of New Orleans. I-"

"I'm sorry." Tara stood up, her palms pressed firmly against the table. "I don't think I can do this. Where _were_ you when mom died? You should have been there!"

"You have no idea how much," she said, staring the taller man down until her voice broke. She bent her head and continued talking with her eyes fixed on the edge of the table. "My brother... Don... He fell apart and I had to be the strong one. _Dad_ was no help, he just stared, didn't comfort him. I had to be the rock. And, after months of fixing my brother's life, he turns around and _hates_ me."


	8. A Brother and a Sister

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Tara's mother's death was unspecified in canon. For several reasons, many of them plot-related, I'm giving her trans-ischemic attacks (TIAs) as a symptom. My dad (1918-2011) had them, although as a part of a very different medical history over a large span of years. I'm sort of putting myself in Tara's shoes to write her reactions on a new family member showing up out of the blue. The quote from Tara's mom during an attack was, more or less, something my dad said during one of his, although, thankfully, one he recovered from. It also dovetails weirdly with 'Seeing Red.'

* * *

In a plush suite across town from the Espresso Pump, a female voice muttered words of pain and fear.

"I see you awoke," spoke a short and rough skinned demon in a wheedling voice. "Your esteemed Glorificus."

"Glory," his boss said, a tinge of annoyed sanity creeping into her voice. "What is it, _Murk_?"

"You slept in, your eminent emanation. I was worried for your sanity, so I took the liberty of preparing a meal."

With those words he stepped aside to reveal a man in a doctor's uniform, gagged and bound to a chair.

"Awww... Breakfast," Glory said, approaching the prisoner with a cat-like grace. "Or is it brunch? Teatime? _Whatever_. Any last words," she asked as she placed her hands on the heavy cloth over the man's mouth and tore the bindings in half with superhuman strength.

"I don't know who you are, but you'll never get away with this," the doctor snarled.

"Oh please, could you get any more cliché?"

"... Probably not," the man admitted, before he cried out in pain.

Without breaking the skin, Glory had plunged her hands into the bound man's skull, up to her wrists, and begun to feed.

* * *

"I know what you mean," Remy said, with a hard edge to his voice. "I met them, before I came here. They're a real piece of work. No-one has the right t' treat someone else like that, let alone_ family_."

"It wasn't the best, even before," Tara said. "But after, without mom, living in a house where every decision you made was second guessed, where you were told you had no future, where your life and hopes were dismissed as some sort of phase you'd grow out of. They had me convinced that who I was, what I could do, how I felt meant I was some sort of demon..."

Hearing what she was saying, she trailed off. "You... Those eyes of yours, they don't go away do they?" She looked up to see Remy already shaking his head. "Oh."

"Eh, down in Orleans there was a legend identifying a with babe these eyes as _le Diable Blanc_, one of the reasons I changed hands so much, I expect," he said, shaking his head. "I go by 'Gambit' these days. Ah. If it helps, I stole dad's car on the way up here. Left it in an impound lot somewheres in Texas."

"Yeah," Tara said as she relaxed back into her seat. "It does some."

"See," Willow said, nudging Tara's arm. "We're making progress."

Tara and Remy glanced at Willow's interruption, then back at each other.

Tara gave a slight shrug.

Remy sighed.

"So," he said, turning to include the redhead in the conversation. "Word on on the street is that Tara's a... spellcaster. I've seen you do some stuff. You guys start off together, or..."

"Mom taught me some stuff," Tara said, before Willow could speak. "I didn't exactly get into the bigger stuff before I came here though. Willow started before I met her. She didn't grow up with magic like I did, but she's advancing at a very high rate."

"Comes with the territory," Willow said. "Oh, we're Wiccans, by the way. Very big with the Wicca."

"Good to know," Remy said as he squared his shoulders and leaned slightly into the table. "So, dat is if you're okay t' talk about it, what did exactly happen to mom?"

"She had a series of mini-strokes. They must have been going on for awhile, before we," Tara said, shaking her head. "Before we noticed. There's three phases of treatment doctors go through, with different combination of medicines, to try to limit _tee eye ayes_ and keep massive... damaging strokes from happening. She only made it to the second phase before the first big one hit. After that, she just wasn't... She died two months later. I, I don't think it was big as the first one, but it was in a bad spot."

"I'm sorry," Remy said. "You'd think it'd be easier t' heal people by callin' on... powers, but it's one of the rarest things out there."

"Yeah," Tara said. "If we all lived in a video game, I could just... I miss her. A lot. She was just a bright spot in my life. She... She took me horseback riding... wh-when we had horses."

Feeling like a third wheel, Willow shifted slightly in her seat.

"When I said my dad tried to keep me at home," Tara said, eying Remy warily. "Through shame... By making me think I was a demon... I mean that literally. I was supposed to turn into a terribly evil demon on my twentieth birthday."

"I'm not somethin' that goes bump in the night," Remy said, with a slight shake of his head. "Left t' myself, I can charge things until they explode in interesting ways, but I've had that power suppressed by certain things that jus' don't work on demons... Oh," he said, glancing up curiously. "When was dis unblessed event supposed to happen?"

"About two weeks ago."

"Happy Birthday."

##

"Oh, about that," Willow asked Remy. "How old are you anyway?"

"Well," he answered, his eyes glinting darkly. "How old do I look?"

"Late twenties," Tara said.

"Early thirties," Willow said, speaking at the same time as Tara.

Both women frowned slightly, as if something was missing.

"As far as my birthday goes, th' trail kinda goes dead in a hospital ward in New Orleans. Dat's where my... adoptive father stole me. I don't know how I ended up there as literally hours before I was going t' open the box wi' the last surviving records in it, he'd paid t' have them destroyed."

"Ouch," Tara said. "That's just... mean."

"I don't think he did it to hurt me, or to protect himself, but... he's manipulated me a_ lot_. He took me in the first place because a local bigwig, a real believer in the legend apparently about me, paid him to. Didn't take too long before my adoptive father, his name be Jean-Luc, stole me back from the man's _collection_... Fer fear of the 'rescue' being linked back t' him, I was left on the street under the care of th' low tier of his organization. It took him years to 'accidentally' bump into me and officially bring me into his family. I think part of the wait was that he jus' wanted to make me so grateful for a warm home I'd adopt the LeBeau family philosophy and do anything they said."

"Oh. That's where LeBeau comes from," Willow said, nodding her head. "And here I was just thinking you were just walking around, calling yourself 'The Beautiful' because... Sorry. Just talking out loud."

"That's okay," Tara said. "I want you here for this. I don't want new massive developments to happen in my life without you being there with me."

##

"I... If I'd have known about Samantha and you," Remy said to Tara, once the witches had stopped staring warmly into each others' eyes. "I'd have been there, and I don't mean just when she was sick. I'd have been there when you were growing up. _Not_ living in the same house, mind you, but I'd visit on holidays and mebbe had you spend summer vacations wi' me wherever I ended up."

"Heh," she said with a half-smile and a slight shake of her head. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

* * *

In the plush suite, the doctor sat, still tied to the chair, his blank gaze fixed on the ceiling.

"_Radishes keen greenly_," he muttered to himself, the sanity having been leached from him by Glory's hunger. "_The blood in them can't be transferred to rocks_."

The doctor's eyes suddenly focused on the brown-haired man who had walked into the room.

"Ben," the doctor said. "_Persimmons falling far from the tree_?"

"Dr. Solus? Oh,_ Hell_," Ben snarled, recognizing the bound man. "She can't do this to me! She can't be feeding where I work!"

"Ben," Dr. Solus shouted, the anger in Ben's voice agitating what was left of his mind. "Glory and Ben! Ben and Glory!"

"Shut up," Ben snarled.

Dr. Solus' cries only rose in volume, the pitch steadily creeping higher and higher.

"Shut up. I said..._ Shut up_!"

Ben screamed into the bound man's face and backhanded him. The chair tipped over and the doctor fell with it, hitting the back of his head hard on the ground.

"Ben _chicken_ Glory," Dr. Solus said, in a merely conversational tone. "Glory _lunch_ Ben _sandwich_?"

"I-" Ben began to ask, before he was interrupted by the doctor's high pitched screaming. "I can't let you go back to the hospital," Ben said with a mixture of anger and regret. "I can't." His voice grew softer and worlds more weary. "Just shut up."

Pulling a plush pillow from the expensive couch, Ben held the pillow to the bound man's face and, despite the older man's struggles, pressed down hard.

After a bit, Ben relaxed and stood up. He bent over the dead man and checked for a pulse.

Turning around, Ben emptied the contents of his stomach onto the thick carpeted floor of the suite.

As he stood there, panting, nearly falling off his feet, a demon in a brown robe approached him from behind.

"Glory's not going to appreciate the mess," Murk said. "She's going to-"

Ben spun around, grabbed the minion by the shoulders and pulled up.

"She's going to what," Ben yelled into the shorter creature's face.

"I meant the body. The body,_ he of the most sacred blood_," Murk screamed. "By 'mess' I _meant the body_!"

"Hmph," Ben said, letting go, allowing Murk to regain his balance. "I guess you'll just have to think of something to do with it. Well, maybe this was a good thing in the long run. I suppose you should only ask others to do things you are prepared to do yourself."

"What was that," Murk asked weakly.

"Oh," Ben said, as he broke off from staring at the body. "Nothing. Just that this is another example of the _destruction_ my sister leaves in her wake. Starting tomorrow I'm going to have to take on more... responsibility. That's tomorrow though. Right now, I'm late for my shift."

* * *

"Oh," Tara said as she sat forward and nodded towards the clock on the wall. "We've class shortly. I'm sorry, uh..."

"Hey," Remy said. "I'm in town. I'm not gonna leave anytime soon."

"We're usually at our dorms or at the Magic Box," Willow said as she and Tara stood up from their chairs. "You have the phone numbers, right?"

"Right here," he said, patting one of his pockets.

"Oh," Tara said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a folded booklet. "This is the program for the play I'm in tonight. I'm mainly behind-the-scenes, painting the city was some of my best work, but I have a few lines. If you wanted..."

"I'd be honored."

"Anyway... You know the lie," Tara said, adjusting her coat about her shoulders. "About me becoming a demon?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't for the life of me understand why my mom backed my dad up on it if it wasn't supposed to be true," she said in a rush. After a calming breath, she continued speaking at a slower rate. "Oh, you know what the last thing she said to me was?"

Remy cringed slightly, catching the undertones of resentment and sadness. "Can't say as I do."

"It- you have to understand that she was okay mentally an hour before the last one hit, and this was near the end, very near the end." Tara stared him down, her eyes pleading: 'why weren't you there?' "It was: _I'll give you money. All the money in the world. But don't buy a new shirt._"

Remy took this as it was meant, an expression of the pain and trauma both Tara and _Samantha_ had to go through without him.

Not wanting to dwell on that at the moment, he raised an eyebrow. "You know, seeing as there's no telling what's going t' happen between now and then, I'd kinda hate for_ that_ to be the last words _we_ say t' each other."

"... Good point."

There was a moment of silence.

"Uh," Remy said, awkwardly. "My eyes would be brown if... Dat's one thing not directly obvious about me and a memory I hold close."

"Oh," Willow said, perking up suddenly. "We have a cat."

"Yeah." Tara's bittersweet smile grew larger as she wrapped her arm around Willow. "A precious little black and white kitten, all cuddly and soft. Female."

"Now that's a look I like," Remy said, grinning himself. "I'm glad she brings you two some happiness. What do you call her?"

"Miss Kitty Fantastico."

##

"Right," Remy said with a sigh. "Only in California."


	9. A Phone Number and a D&D Reference

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

Remy stood in front of the Magic Box, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

He was worried.

He'd met his family, but there was no sign of a helpful portal leading back to his earth.

"Not like dere was one promised," he said aloud. "It's possible I'm meant t' stay here, until I've helped Tara out wi' somethin' massive. Or maybe I'll be sent back t' the mansion once I figure out how I fell between realities in the first place. Maybe I'm still here, because I've been forgotten about and I need to make my own portal. That, or maybe I'm jus' supposed t' make this world my new home.

"Some hint," he said, growling slightly. "Would be very much appreciated."

##

Sighing, he pushed open the doors to the Magic Box and went inside.

When the bell above the door rang, Giles looked up from his spot by the cash register.

With a sort of weary smile, the Watcher bent down out of sight. Coming up with Remy's heavy bag, he placed it on the counter.

"Wow," said a customer, noticing the bulging fabric. "Now that's what I call buying in bulk."

##

"Thanks for holding on to th' stuff for me and I do appreciate y' bringing it to work with you," Remy said, nodding at the bag he'd left at Giles' home after a night spent on the Watcher's couch. "Makes things a bit easier. Plus, even though I think dis shirt made a better first impression, I feel a lot more like myself in a good leather jacket."

"Went through a phase like that myself," Giles said. "Although, since I had poor taste at the time, they tended to be black with studs. So," he continued after a slight pause. "Any luck in finding a hotel room?"

"Not as such," Remy said, still a bit griped that the cash he'd brought from his room in the mansion was useless in his current reality. "Alright if I change in the back room?"

"Go right ahead."

While digging through the bag, Remy's hand brushed a piece of paper. Pulling it out, he realized it was the address he'd copied down from the phone booth near his mother's graveyard.

"I don't suppose I'm here t' help _those_ people out," Remy said to himself. "Am I? Nah. That bunch o' Maclays seem to be taking care of themselves. Anyway, seeing as I only wrote down the address, de point is moot. Well, I suppose it'd be easy enough to get my dad's phone number, but I got no reason to take the time."

* * *

"Hey," Willow said as she met Tara outside between classes. "I called your dad. He's okay."

Tara stared at her girlfriend like she'd grown a second head. "You thought that would be a good idea, how?"

"No, everything's fine," Willow said, pulling a tape recorder from her pack. "I was worried that, 'cause your brother stole his car-"

"He just said he stole the car," Tara said, shaking her head. "Nothing to get worked up about. Not like he'd said it was a habit, or that he'd hot-wired it."

"Exactly. So I was thinking that maybe Remy had done something a bit more violent than just simply grabbing it from the driveway. I've seen him fight. You haven't yet."

"Go on," Tara said. If she had been paying attention, she might have noticed Ben pull up to a phone booth in the distance and run inside, the good doctor having apparently decided to abandon his shift.

"So, I went on-line and grabbed a recycling campaign's sound bite. Then I did some search-fu and came up with your dad's number. When he answered the phone and I was sure he sounded okay, I played the recording. He hung up first."

"That's... good to know," Tara said. "Really think he's human?"

"Your dad? Oh," Willow said, switching gears mentally. "Right. Giles said there was precedent, but... Remy certainly looks... Think your mom had an affair with a demon?"

They both blinked, startled by the sound of screeching tires in the background. Neither of them recognized the car.

Taking a moment to collect her thoughts, Tara sighed and shook her head. "Let's hope that she had a choice."

* * *

Remy grimaced as he re-entered the main room of the store. It wasn't as if he could go on a stealing spree without knowing a place to fence the goods, or had a better idea of the security measures used in Sunnydale's reality.

"It'd just be my luck, t' pick the wrong pocket and end up cursed," he said to himself. "Besides, this is my sister's town and anything I do could ripple back an' hit her. Nah. I'm better off jus' takin' from the bad guys.

"Speakin' of which," he said, sauntering up to Giles. "Hey, there has to be more t' this place if there's enough stuff going on to keep a group the size of yours busy. Assumin' dis be a proper demon and magic-filled town, with adventures like last night's jaunt around every corner... There be any nests of bad guys or treasure-filled ruins you haven't gotten around t' taking out yet?"

##

With a long-suffering sigh, Giles took off his glasses and began to polish them.

"That's... actually a good question," Giles said as he stopped cleaning his glasses mid-motion. "The simple answer is, a lot less than there used to be."

Remy flashed a wry grin. "They jus' not makin' proper dragon-filled tombs like they did in the ole days, eh?"

"Oh please," Giles said. "This is not a video game. If it was, I'd be getting my swords blessed. Ahem. No, this town was host to a team of government paid... commandos that swept through the town without a proper understanding of magic or ritual. If it was shiny and unclaimed or in the hands of who _they_ thought were the 'bad guys', as you put it, well, they took it and used it to supplement their budget. I have no idea how many of the magical treasures a Hellmouth... _unnaturally_ attracts were melted down for scrap."

"Well, do they have records of the places that were too big or too small for them t' hit?"

"Considering the place was abandoned, the organization disbanded and… That we have one of the surviving soldiers who would know where the surviving records are kept, if any… Oh."

"I'd say we better well ask then, eh, _mon ami_," Remy said with a smirk. "Oh, and not t' sound too much like a tourist, but what's a Hellmouth?"

Giles stared him down for a beat.

"Not t' say I don't know de name," Remy clarified. "Any idiot with access t' a computer, th' name of this town in his pocket, and a willingness to wade hip-deep in contradictory bullshit knows about the Sunnydale Hellmouth. What that actually means is, apparently, a lot harder t' say wi' all the 'theories' out there. Gambit's personal favorite was de guy who called it 'a shortcut to the mystical land of shrimp.'"

"Right now." Giles frowned. "All I'm going to say is that it's a place where the world is thin... You know, you can't just wander in and expect to be included in our group just like that."

Remy raised an eyebrow as Giles snapped his fingers.

"What," Remy asked. "There be a waiting period?"

##

"Look," Giles said, sighing. "You _weren't_ there to see what happened when Tara's family came to visit. That was a good thing in the long run because it turned her from a relative outsider into a member of our core group. However, if we hadn't stood up for her then, she would have been broken_ utterly_."

"Not to mention," he continued in a sterner tone. "I have yet to see evidence of you taking what we face in this town - matters of life and death - seriously. You waltz in here with a grin on your face, expecting your athletic prowess and skills to protect you from anything. This world is, at times, a dark place and it just doesn't work like you seem to _think_ it does. By what rights should I provide you with the identity of a commando, a valuable resource, when you have not yet done anything to earn my respect?"

"So that's how it is, eh? I join in on a rescue mission to save your life," Remy said, his voice hard. "And you turn around and ask Gambit: 'What have you done for me lately?'"

"That's _not enough_," Giles said, raising his voice until he was practically shouting.

Customers from all over the store stopped in their tracks and turned to look at the two men.

"That's just not enough," Giles said in a more normal voice, oblivious to the extra eyes on him. His shoulders lowered and he looked older than he had seconds before the outburst. "You're only in this hellish town because of Tara and I don't believe she could handle a death on her hands."

##

"Heh, Gambit be in trouble, wherever he goes," Remy said with a wink. "That's a habit that won't be broken any time soon. I'd say I have as much chance of dying anywhere else as I do right here."

"That's just it." Giles grimaced. "You're here to join the fight. It would be different if you were present in a civilian capacity. If I was that bloody worried about life on the Hellmouth I'd be staging a massive evacuation of Sunnydale and pushing for it to be turned into a national park. No," he said, regretfully. "Mrs. Summers... That would be, ah, Buffy's mother... Has been living here for well on four years and what she's most at risk from _now_ is a shadow on her CAT scan, rather than anything mystical."

"Oh. I'm sorry t' hear."

"Ah, yes, well. The point remains that if you stay..." Giles trailed off, his mouth tightening. "It just occurred to me how terribly hypocritical the suggestion that you leave would be coming from me. I've felt the rejection that comes from someone who's been a part of your life, who you want to continue to have in your life, leave simply because, to them, you're not as _important_ as leaving town for someplace _safe_. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, especially not Tara."

"Even so, there is some truth in what you say," Remy said. "About how my death might affect my sister. I can hope for the best, but... A friend of mine was young when her friend was... No, that's a story for another time. More appropriate t' this situation is that I've seen a family of, ah, young warriors for the light, torn apart over the death of one of their own. They weren't the same after it, thinking of de past, rather than th' future and eventually they just drifted apart. However..." His words trailed off.

There was silence for a few seconds, before a wide smile appeared on Remy's face.

"Yes, go on," said Giles, despite himself.

"As those young warriors who'd been hit so hard grew up, many of them became teachers." Remy leaned forward, letting a bit more of the respect he felt for them leak into his voice. "Right now, they're helping the younger generation so that they won't make the same mistakes. What I'm saying is, I definitely _won't _promise to stay out of the fights here, so I can't say I won't get hurt. What I _can _do is impart some of my skills and help with the training, so that the family my sister has built fer herself here, will be better off for me having been here, when I go."

"Of course," Remy continued. "I've been around the block enough t' know my own limits, such as they are. I'm not likely to get into a brawl without having already made note of all the possible routes out of it. If I do stay in there long enough, against an opponent that clearly outclasses me, to get beaten to a bloody pulp... It'll be because I've decided de current goal is worth it."

Giles studied Remy's face intently, as if to judge the sincerity of his words.

"Well," Giles said with a half-smile. "It's not as if you're applying for a job at the highschool. That certainly cuts down on the paperwork. However..."

Giles trailed off, his eyes locking on something moving in the background just to the side of Remy's head.

He realized, to his shock that it was a customer listening intently to every word they said.

Looking around the room, he understood just how public their 'private' chat had become.

"However," Giles continued, clearing his throat loudly. "Perhaps it would be best if we could continue this conversation at a later date."

Nodding agreement, Remy turned and made his own survey of the students, tourists and practitioners that prowled the shelves of the Magic Box on any given day.

##

Only a few, including Ben, had the grace to look embarrassed.


	10. A Dropped Wallet and a Pack of Questions

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Thanks to reviewer AllenPitt for several points of inspiration for this and upcoming chapters.

I'm having Remy's Marvel U follow a sliding scale version of comic-book time where all the events happening in a decade's worth of published pages, especially if they're someone's early history, may be compressed to a year or two so the characters stay about the same age. While it all makes complete sense to a native, many 'fixed' dates are unreadable outside their frame of reference due to overlap.

* * *

It was dark inside the Sunnydale sewers.

The charged card in Remy's hand bathed the walls in a soft purple light as he trudged through the tunnels, his heavy bag secured about his chest.

Not having any particular place to go in town for the next several hours nor any substantial amount of _usable_ money to spend once he got there, he had decided to explore the underground in hopes of finding a lair worth raiding. He was also searching for an abandoned place secure and defensible enough that he wouldn't mind storing a few items for retrieval at a later date.

"Worse come to worse," Remy said with a sigh. "I may be sleepin' down here tonight. Not going to ask Giles for help again, so soon after last night, and the petty cash I put together on my cross-country trip is running low..."

He closed his mouth abruptly and, by reabsorbing the energy running through the card in his hand, returned the sewers to a state of deep shadow.

Footsteps approached from an intersection in front of Remy. In the dim light still filtering down from somewhere, he was able to make out two small figures.

##

One was a boy who appeared to be about six years of age, presumably with dark hair.

A girl, alike enough to be his sister, walked beside the boy.

Not only were they traveling unescorted through the sewers of a Hellmouth, they were hissing to each other in a very reptilian manner... In a way that no human should be able to do without drastic surgery to the tongue.

Frowning to himself, Remy backed up a step into a small darkened alcove, no more than one or two feet deep.

The vampire who had been standing there, pressed up against the walls, unbreathing and as still as death, wasted no time in raising the board in his hands and swinging it towards the back of Remy's head.

With a loud crack, the board connected.

Remy fell forward and hit the ground with a large thud.

The vampire's blow wasn't as bad as it could have been, but the mutant was down for the count.

##

The vampire for his part was clutching his head and screaming, the chip in his head firing searing pulses of energy deep into his grey matter.

"Shut up, shut up!" Spike screamed through the pain. "How was I supposed to know a guy with _eyes_ like that and _glowing hands _was _human_?"

After a few moments, the vampire was able to pull himself together.

Wiping his eyes, he looked up to see the boy and the girl still standing there, watching him curiously.

"Move along, snakeheads." He snarled viciously, swapping his normal human-seeming face for one with ridges and yellowed eyes. "Nothing to see here."

Hissing quietly to themselves, the two figures walked into the surrounding darkness and were quickly lost to sight.

##

When he was sure he was once again free from prying eyes, Spike bent low over Remy's unconscious form and began rifling through his pockets.

Remy had chosen to train in threat detection, strength and agility. These were important skills in a thief. He'd also built up his resistance to pain and the ability to carve out a peaceful little world for himself to retreat to in case of torture, either psychic or physical. However, at a basic level, he was human and therefore vulnerable.

To be fair, if someone with Spike's level of strength and the ability to bypass spidey-sense hit Peter Parker in the back of the head with a board, he'd go down just as hard. He'd probably also recover faster, but that's something else entirely.

"Jackpot," Spike announced as he retrieved the mutant's wallet.

Opening it, he found it thick with hundred-dollar bills.

"Now what's," he managed to say, before his words trailed off. He peered more closely at the money. "That's not right."

Staring carefully at the date of circulation on the bills, he flipped through them one by one, then opened the wallet wide enough to check the year stamped on Remy's driver's license.

Frowning, Spike dropped the wallet. It hit Remy's jacket-covered back with a soft thunk and stayed there, rising and falling slightly with each breath from his lungs.

##

Spike, for his part, turned his head towards the ceiling and asked in a loud voice: "What the _Hell_ is going on here?"

* * *

Across town, at the campus of Sunnydale University, Willow barely had time to set her books on the floor of her dorm room before the phone rang.

"Hey, this is Willow," she spoke into the receiver. "Classes just ended and I was thinking about heading out do some sympathy shopping for Buffy. What's up?"

Her eyes widened when she realized who was on the other end of the line. "Spike? You're calling from a payphone? It's daylight. Oh, the mayor paid for some to be installed underground? That's a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. What? Oh, I guess that demons can run businesses too. Why are you calling?"

"A map of Sunnydale with Tara's name circled in red and a pamphlet about a play she's in tonight? Oh, I remember! That's Gambit, her brother. No, a new one. Is he okay? Oh. Easy mistake. Is he... No, of course, not that. I kinda guessed from how you sounded that he's still alive - just out of it. Is he human?"

On hearing the answer, Willow let out a little squeal of excited glee. Apparently, it was loud enough to make Spike drop the phone, so she apologized before continuing with her questions.

"Thanks. Saved us a lot of trouble. What? No we don't like inflicting pain on you. If we did don't you think we'd be a lot more inventive? We're just happy the government poked around in your head so you could only hurt demons. Wait, no, that came out wrong. Look, I'm sorry. If I think about this any longer I'm going to go into epic guilt mode and start baking cookies. Sprinkles? Sure, if it'll help."

"Anyway, you'd better make sure that he's there to see her perform. Seriously, I've seen this in movies, people who invite family members who don't show get their feelings hurt. No, I'm not going. This is her project, personal space is healthy. Yeah, Grant High. He helped us save Giles last night, but I don't know him that well. I guess he's okay."

"What? All of it? Huh. Well, sounds like he fell victim to an area effect spell. His road trip must have been a lot weirder than he let on. You're worried about Dawn? Why? Oh, right. You're British. Highschool's for the four highest grades, she's headed to one of them next year. Hey, mister, I don't care that his boots are extremely heavy. You break a guy, you have to carry him around. It's polite."

* * *

Remy shook his head as the world around him swam into focus. He blinked his eyes and was rewarded with the blurry image of his sister in a pretty pink dress. Behind her and far below, he could see a curtain of closely packed golden chains menacing some people laying down on the ground. From the way the light kept playing over the metal, reflecting in brilliant flashes, and the ambient buzzing sound, he decided it was meant to represent wasps or bees. Overall, it was a nice effect.

"Alright. At a guess, dat big blurry patch over there must be th' audience." Remy rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head, grimacing as he noticed he and Tara weren't alone in the booth. "We must be at the play. Don't worry, _cherie_. Remy will be fine. Dis blonde fella, though? Is he some kindly passerby dat jus' happened to pull me out of the sewer or is he the one who knocked me out in th' first place?"

Spike rose from the disinterested crouch he'd been affecting. "Hey, I was down there, minding my own business. You practically charged into my hiding spot. Can't a bloke defend himself? Regardless, 'Gambit', I'm not the one who's been hiding things from his 'family'. Can you read what it says right here?"

Remy realized that the vampire was holding his ID and followed the pointing finger to the printed year of birth. He sighed. "I can read dat jus' fine. But I know dat you can't. Came as a shock to me when a sheriff pulled me over in Texas and asked me to read it for him. There's something about me reading a number that's clear to me but blurred to you that causes trouble. It gave him a splitting migraine so bad he nearly passed out."

Remy straightened up as well as he could. "Now, I know we're up out of the way and we'd be hard to hear even without the play going on, but." He waved a hand. "Do ya really want me to risk reading it out loud in a room full of kids?"

##

In the audience, two figures sat, but their attention wasn't really on the play. Instead they scanned the corners of the darkened room as if waiting for something to happen.

"Oh my God, this is _so _boring," one of them said in a bit too loud of a voice. He grinned when a few of the parents sitting nearby turned to shush him. "Yeah, I'm talking to you."

"Hey, quiet down," his companion said, with a gentle elbow to the ribs. "Do you want to get thrown out? Besides, we're trying to remain incognito here."

"Well, it isn't quite working is it? Most of the people here are either parents or still in highschool and while you definitely resemble the latter, I stick out like a sore thumb."

"Hey!" This prompted another round of shushing. "Look, Warren," Jonathan Levinson said, his voice softer than before. "He was a sophomore when I was a senior, you know, the year our old Sunnydale High exploded? Tucker was in my graduating class. In college, he was the one who got me into magic. If his little brother wants us here for some reason, then it's probably a good one."

* * *

Backstage, inside a hollow staircase used mainly for musicals, a summoning circle had been set up. Safe from prying eyes, Andrew Wells was following the instructions on the parchment he'd 'liberated' from the crypt. He'd set it up on a small music stand, which had seemed appropriate as part of the instructions called for the playing of a pan-flute.

"This is so cool." He grinned, spinning the green crystal a final quarter turn. "This ritual is witch magic specific, but I should be able to back engineer the principles and summon almost anything."

One last clear note from the pipes shattered the crystal in a blinding flash of light. The candles blew out, leaving the twelfth-grader in darkness, but very much not alone.

* * *

In the new and improved sound and lighting booth, the director was complaining to an underling. It was taking a lot of effort to keep his voice under control. "I can't believe this. The big summoning scene is up next and the kid hasn't even shown up for makeup."

"I know he seemed so enthusiastic before," the student said, her braids bobbing. "Think we'll have to have one of the college students fill in for him? Tara knows the play inside and out, but she really looked uncomfortable when we first brought up the idea in casting."

"We could pull it off though, we're playing this production by the book so it's not like the characters actually meet-"

His words were broken off by the sound of the girl in front of him screaming as an attacking monster got caught up in her hair.

* * *

On the stage a black-haired girl and her four companions were being menaced by yellow-suited soldiers when a horde of furry creatures burst out from behind the scenery and started attacking friend and foe alike.

"Oh, please," Warren Mears said sarcastically, leaning forward in his seat. "They're supposed to wait until after the Winkie guards are beaten. I've read the _Wizard of Oz_ and-"

"Dude," Jonathan said, tugging on his sleeve. "I don't think they're part of the play."

"Oh... Sweet."

##

"Oh, c'mon," Spike said, from their perch above the stage in the unused and outdated soundbooth. "Just when we were getting to the good part."


	11. A Quick Sweep and a Hairy Situation

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

Tara spun into action, racing towards the red cloak she'd hung over the back of chair and whipping it around her shoulders.

"I think we prob'bly better table this discussion," Remy said, smoothly mounting the control panel and removing the barrier meant to keep people from falling out of the booth. "Til the crisis is over, no?"

He gave her one last look. She nodded as she pinned the tiara into her hair and headed for the door.

Remy leapt across empty space into the lighting and quickly began swinging towards more stable handholds in the direction of the stage.

"Oh, show off," Spike said, cheekily, as he moved to follow Tara down the stairs. "I could do that if I wanted to, but I'm not going to go out there to save a bunch of kids when there's an audience. I have a reputation to uphold. I'll keep to the backstage portion. 'Sides, it looks like that's where the trouble started. Maybe I can keep it from getting worse."

Tara pushed the Emerald City backdrop she'd painted out of her way, her face stern and focused. "Whatever you say. All I know is that Glinda is going to kick some ass."

* * *

In the sound and lighting booth, the director grabbed a heavy binder of stage notes and moved to help his assistant, but the girl was thrashing too much for him to get close.

She was whipping her hair back and forth, in an effort to dislodge the little brown, furry creature, but it just kept hanging on with its hands and feet. Seeming to enjoy the motion, it shoved one of the braids in its mouth and bit through the thick bundle of hair with razor sharp teeth.

The director worked his way behind the girl and swung for where the monkey-shaped demon would be in a second. As the book was swinging a third hand, the black color of the hair the creature had just eaten, emerged from its back and batted the book away. The creature's head rotated completely around to face the director, gave him a grin, continued rotating until it was facing the right way again and started chomping away.

* * *

The little creatures had carelessly pelted the audience with helmets and other costume parts they'd thrown away in their quest for food but, when Remy dramatically landed on the stage, one of them flung a dense piece of armor directly at his chest. It hit him dead center. The momentum lifted him off his feet and carried him clear off the stage.

"Oof," Remy grunted, from where he'd landed in a pile of sandbags. He made some odd noises. As he caught his breath, rose to his feet and brushed himself off, they resolved into chuckles. "Mebbe with this performing for a crowd, I let myself get carried away."

He reached into his coat and pulled out something he'd bought at the Magic Box that first night with Giles. "I know I always keep a good stack of these on hand so I don't run out but, still, there ain't nuthin' like unwrapping the cellophane from a fresh pack."

A smooth motion later, so practiced that it was instinctive, and a card was charging in his hand, bathing the surroundings in a purple light.

"You want some," he shouted to the creatures just now emerging from the darkness. "Come and get some!"

##

Tara strode on the stage in a blaze of glory and began blasting away at the monsters with what she held in her hands. A portable fire extinguisher.

The creatures, who had just about defoliated the actors and begun turning their eyes towards the audience, started chittering away, laughing at her, even the ones she hit.

A wave of her hand and a muttered word later, five of the creatures that had been covered the most with foamy lather were encased in solid blocks of ice.

##

The laughter stopped.

* * *

The director grabbed his assistant by the shoulders. "Myra," he said, in a calm voice.

She stopped shaking her head and stood completely still. Tears started running down her face.

He stayed silent until she opened her eyes. She closed them again a second later, but he took it as a good sign. "I know this is scary. There's a monster hanging from your head and..." He decided it was better not to mention it was growing larger each time it jabbed hair in its mouth. "It doesn't seem to be doing you any physical harm. Now what I want you do is think back to your fire drills in school. I know you know what to do in a situation like this. Right?"

She nodded.

"Then do it."

In a quick motion, before the monkey-shaped demon could adjust its footing, she flung herself to the ground and started rolling.

The creature saw only darkness for an instant, then it was back in the light. Another moment of darkness and it found itself pinned underneath the book, the director's full weight pressed against it. It tried to hold on tight to the strands of hair still in its hands but, as the girl kept rolling, most of these were yanked from its grasp.

While some hairs were pulled from her head as she struggled to her feet she felt it was well worth the pain.

##

The director had pinned the monkey flat. His eyes were staring into its eyes and its left hand was groping for his right hand. Both of his knees were digging into the blue binder that was squishing the rest of the monkey into the polymer-based carpet.

Myra started pulling a heavy desk over to the director and he was adjusting his weight when the monkey's features lost cohesion. Its black eyes disappeared.

In an instant, the monkey had reweaved itself so its head and free arm had switched positions, which meant the director's hand was in a bad place. An accidental twitch of razor sharp teeth later and the director was missing a fingertip.

He stood up in shock, blood dripping. The monkey threw the binder across the room and started heaving. The woven hair that made up the inside of its chest ballooned out through its mouth and it started thrashing about trying to free itself of the terrible stinging flesh.

The director ran out the door, into the backstage hallway, hoping to reach the fire exit, only to have another monkey drop from the ceiling onto his head.

Screaming, he raced down the hallway only to have a hand come out from behind a curtain and swipe the monkey off his head, to land across the room.

"Pillock," Spike sneered towards the director's retreating back. Myra brushed past Spike in pursuit of the fleeing man, holding a First Aid kit as if she was a quarterback racing for a touchdown.

##

Spike turned to face the monkey again only to be hit by something furry headed directly for the center of his chest at very high speeds. He was flung backwards, through a doorway and very nearly missed hitting his head against a dressing room sink.

"Oh, my God, it's on me." He wildly scratched at his chest. "No, wait, it's not. How the hell did it do that? I know bloody well that it didn't bounce off."

Looking up, he saw three monkeys peering in at him, so he swung himself to his feet. A quick glance behind him showed what was in the sink.

"Alright, Spike. Electric razor or some of those blond tufts. Carrot or stick. Make up your mind." Sighing, he grabbed a large handful of the loose hair and turned. "Look, I know you guys like to eat this, I could see that all the way from the balcony. Can't we make a deal?"

The creatures snarled and backed away slightly.

He waved it closer to them and they hissed, fluffing themselves up like cats. They leaned in, their teeth snapping, so he pulled his hand back out of reach.

Frowning, he pulled some of the fluff apart and blew it towards them in a small cloud. Where it hit, it singed, sending up little streams of smoke.

Gibbering in fear, the little creatures ran out of sight.

"Oh. So they don't like it loose?" Spike turned to survey the area. "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense." He held the electric razor up to his face, smirked, and tossed it over his shoulder before pushing the hair already in the sink into a pile. "Can't exactly corner these guys on my own. Guess I'll help Glinda and Toto wipe out their group. Although, maybe when I head out on that stage, I can do it cleverly..."

* * *

Wary of the fire extinguisher, the monkeys fell back as Tara approached, but stayed around the edges of the stage. When she reached the actors she laid down a fine spray of foam in an arc behind her, before kneeling down to comfort the scared teenagers. Her defensive measure was a bluff as the covered floor wouldn't actually hurt any monkeys sneaking up on her, but she didn't expect them to call her on it.

One of the football players who'd been playing a Winkie soldier took the opportunity to grab the lightest person next to him and make a run for it. He charged up on the ring of monkeys carrying his surprised friend, hoping they'd break and let them through.

As the teens neared the border a few of the monkeys formed a small pyramid by standing on each other's shoulders, only to have the base swept out from under them from behind by Remy's bo staff.

Remy stept aside to let the actors pass, the first to escape the stage since the attack began. He did a double-take, realizing the monkeys were using the distraction to launch a counterattack against his sister. "Behind you," he cried as he broke into a run.

##

Out in the audience, Warren and Jonathan were staring, mouths agape, at the three monkeys hanging in mid-air behind Tara.

"Oh, my God," Warren said. "They can fly without wings?"

"Yeah, I mean they're magic anyway," Jonathan said. "But that is_ so_ cool!"

As one, the two men rose to their feet and yelled "Go, Andrew!"

They then made one of the geekiest cheering noises possible.

They were far enough back and the murmur of the audience was so loud that no-one on stage heard them.

That was enough for Warren, but Jonathan simply wasn't able to restrain himself. "_It's your birthday_!"

That cheer was loud enough to reach the stage and everyone, even the monkeys who _weren't_ being beat up by Remy and Tara, turned to look in his direction incredulously.

"Uh, yeah." Warren face-palmed in embarrassment. "We better go."

They joined the trickle of people exiting the auditorium, many of whom were leaving simply because the production had drifted so far from the book.

##

"Those teeth are sharp," Remy said. "I'm not gonna risk gettin' close enough to charge 'em. How about you?"

"I grabbed a spare fire extinguisher, but I left it offstage." Tara helped the last bald actress to her feet. "Couldn't use one and carry two. They're not letting me get close to them anymore, maybe if we walked far enough that way, you could grab it and use it. I'm not sure how long I can cast this spell without a break, though."

"Have no fear," someone shouted in a horrendously bad Texan superhero accent. "The Wicked Witch is here." Spike strode onstage in full costume, face painted green, black hat at a jaunty angle and a huge black cape billowing behind him. The putty under the makeup looked slightly lumpy, but he'd done a decent job of becoming unrecognizable.

The scattered monkey horde charged toward him, but he was able to give a solid enough blow to one of them with his long handled-broom that the creature caught fire. Screaming, it burned down into a small pile of ash as its companions fled in terror.

"You see," Spike said in his loud 'acting' voice as he walked towards his friends. "I have treated my broom with Special Ingredient Hair. Oh, yes, here's a baggie of it for you and one for you."

"Hey," shouted a smart aleck in the audience. The man stood on his chair to yell better. "If _he's_ the Witch, who's the guy with the red eyes?"

Remy snorted faintly, as he pulled out a card to charge in his hand. The purple glow started to faintly outshine the spotlights. "I'm de Wizard," he said, flicking the card towards a huddle of monkeys where it exploded, blowing them apart. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Speechless, the heckler sat down.

##

A couple of the braver actors who'd made it offstage started sniping with the spare fire extinguisher at the monkeys around the edges of the stage, so Tara went to help them.

"So, seriously," Spike said in a softer voice, as the monkeys that had been rendered into loose piles of hair started to reform. "Does that blurring thing happen to everything you carry? I noticed some of it, mainly the smaller bills, were alright."

"No, thank God," Remy said. "Now, really, is this the time to talk?"

"It's a crisis, so you're stuck here. Don't pretend you wouldn't rather avoid this conversation, maybe by not being nearby to ask?"

Remy nodded slightly, acknowledging the point. "I'd rather not say what is really going on, because more than likely it would go into de play review and make us look even more stupid."

"Fine, then whisper it. I have really good hearing."

"One word hint," Remy said. Very faintly, he whispered 'Sliders.'

"What, those little meat things? What do they have to do with anything?" Confused for a moment, Spike's eyes widened as he recognized the name of the TV show about dimensional travel. "_Oh_."


	12. A Rising Cloud and a Defensive Tone

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Heh, awesome. Years after I first posted these guys, hair apes have made their way into Adventure Time. Completely different critters as, among other things, theirs aren't hungry and are a dust bunny – static electricity based – type. Still... Sweet.

* * *

Having frozen a few more of the monkeys into immobility, Tara had time to consider what was going on. "Let me see that," she said, after having stared at her own bag of hair for awhile. Remy shrugged and handed his over. A short spell later and the hair had been rendered into a fine powder suitable for creating short lived dust clouds.

After a bit of planning, Tara passed her fire extinguisher to one of the actors and Myra, who'd made her way to the stage by then, grabbed a third one from the production booth. With Spike wielding his treated broom, Remy and Tara holding their bags of hair and help from the cast, they started herding the monkeys away from the edges of the stage and into the center.

Nodding to Remy, Tara reached in her bag and pulled out a handful of the powdered hair. Standing at one edge of the loose circle of monkeys she blew the hair towards the largest concentration. Remy did the same from the other side, while Spike kept any from fleeing in his direction.

As the powder drifted towards the monkeys they reacted by levitating en masse. In the center of the stage, several feet in the air they held onto each other, forming a tight ball and began to weave themselves into each other.

The monkeys scattered throughout the backstage, including those harassing the staff who'd barricaded themselves into places like the janitor's closet, stopped what they were doing and zoomed towards the stage, reaching it within seconds.

When all the monkeys had connected to each other they resolved into a single giant floating gorilla.

The dust clouds barely had time to thin. The monster's loud bellow blew the clouds out a bit further.

Somewhat unimpressed, Remy held his bag high and made a running leap for the scenery. Scaling it he reached the ropes holding it and launched himself towards the catwalk. Holding onto it with one hand he dumped all of the powdered hair he carried into the air directly above the gorilla.

Dozens of black eyes opened across the gorilla's scalp and the monster freaked, abandoning its flight and trying to form into a squat pancake shape as it dove towards the ground.

"Spike, lighter!" Tara caught the flung tool and flicked it on. Enhancing the small flame into a proper torch she ran through the dust ring right up to the monster and shoved it against its chest.

Caught on all sides, the monster died in a huge billow of smoke and flame.

##

Remy released his hold on the grating high above the stage, fell a bit, grabbed a cable and swung himself, his metal boots passing through the top edge of the cloud he was avoiding being roasted by, towards a fairly solid portion of the backdrop, bounced off the painted surface using his bo staff as a guide for momentum and gracefully landed on the stage floor.

##

There was silence for a few seconds before the audience erupted in applause.

Drawn by the noise, it only took a few moments before most of the cast, including a very confused director with a bandaged hand, were rounded up into a rough line to take their bows.

##

A six year old in the front row, who had taken the opportunity to climb her daddy's shoulders, shouted: "The Wicked Witch was so awesome! I want to be just like her when I grow up."

##

Understandably, this left Tara and Spike with rather odd looks on their faces.

* * *

"So you think when the blocks of ice are hit," Myra said as she escorted Tara to the lighting booth. "The monkeys inside will shatter into little cubes?"

"That's the plan, they don't have bones. Clean-up can wait, the ambulance is about to leave and I want to see if Mr. Sanderson's fingertip can be salvaged." Someone elbowed Tara, squeezing past the girls in the narrow hallway. "Hey."

Tara spun in place, wanting to chew the guy out for the rudeness, but something about the back of his head struck her as odd. "Hey, did you see," she said, her words breaking off as she turned to look over her shoulder.

Myra had just opened the door and the inside of the room had been... redecorated by the demon's efforts to rid itself of the small amount of flesh and blood. Each of the hairs that had been stained were thrashing, individually, rolling up the walls and across the ceiling, leaving very faint trails as they tried futilely to get clean.

"Oh. Goddess." Tara muttered a faint prayer. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and opened her eyes again, determined not to let the spectacle get the better of her. "This is going to take awhile."

* * *

After hanging around the auditorium doors for awhile, sneaking glances in at the action, Warren and Jonathan decided to leave. They'd just stepped out into the darkness surrounding Grant High when someone came running up behind them. Warren threw out his fist reflexively, hitting him hard on the shoulder, but Andrew was too happy to really mind the pain.

"Wasn't that awesome?" Andrew started bouncing in place like a very small Tigger. "I told you I could pull something spectacular off."

"Yeah," Jonathan allowed. "You did. It was amazing."

"Oh, please." Warren sneered, unwilling to show how impressed he was. "Magic's wild and uncontrolled. Give me science. I've got a robot girlfriend back home who'll do anything I say."

"Really?" Jonathan's brow furrowed. "Can she roleplay? I could write up a character sheet for her and have her try out at the next game-"

"Uncontrolled?" Andrew's face and freshly shaved head were red. He'd been trying to keep his emotions in check, but had failed completely. "I'll have you know I'm the only reason they didn't attack the audience. I'm why nobody got hurt!"

Warren took pity on the geek, inclining his head to show he hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. "So, how'd you get them to follow your orders?"

"Uh. Weeks and weeks of training," Andrew lied through his teeth. He didn't know how long it'd take him to figure out enough of the parchment's binding spell that he'd be able to weave one of his own and he was afraid his new friends would want another demonstration immediately. "Yeah. Same as what my brother did, except I actually succeeded!"

"Wait, what did Tucker fail at? I thought he was pretty much good at everything," Jonathan said. "Of course, that could just be a side effect of that spell he gave me in college."

"Boring," Warren muttered.

"He sent a pack of hellhounds to tear apart the prom. Sure, one of them escaped and killed a guy in a store." Andrew mimed the rending and clawing of flesh. "But at the actual event the Slayer rendered 'em all impotent! They barely made it in the building! She broke their friggin' necks. My flying monkey demons don't even have bones to break!"

"You mean the guy was actually ripped apart?" Warren's face twisted into a hungry grin. "That is so cool!"

"Wait. That prom? My prom?" Jonathan growled. "What a jerk. I'm never DM-ing for him again."

"Does that mean I get to have his seat at the game?" Andrew's eyes grew really big and hopeful.

"Sure, kid," Warren said, deciding he had earned that much. "Absolutely."

* * *

Noticing that several of the bloodstained hairs had fallen to the carpet and were twitching themselves in her direction, Tara upended her bag of powdered hair, sending what little remained drifting towards her feet. Stepping back, she cast a spell meant to create a small windstorm as she slammed the door in front of her. A few muted pops later, she opened the door again and was rewarded by the sight of nothing moving in the room besides a few puffs of smoke descending from the ceiling.

"Okay," she said. "I was wrong, that didn't take any time at all."

##

On her way back to the stage, Tara caught a glimpse of a still-costumed Spike ducking into a dressing room and closing the door quietly.

Her knock received a muttered 'bloody hell.' "Sorry, luv," Spike said as he cracked open the door. "I can't keep up the accent any longer and I'm afraid someone might come in here and knick my stuff. Soon as I'm out of this get-up, I'm gone. Didn't sign up to be part of a cleaning crew either."

"Why'd you do it in the first place?"

"Well, it helped that the trousers and shirt were meant for a guy already, albeit a tight fit." Spike sighed. "Dru sometimes had visions of other worlds. Places where the rules were different and our kind could walk in what passed for daylight. She always wanted to go to one and make herself a princess, usually by killing the competition. Remember Dracula? We'd bought a copy of that, signed by the author, a week or so before we met the great big poof himself. After that, she made it a point of tracking down fiction she wanted to be true. I guess I wanted to recapture some part of the dream."

Having made his speech looking at the floor, he raised his head with a rogueish grin. "Besides, I make this cape look _good_."

Still smiling under the make-up, he pushed the door shut.

##

A few seconds later, deep in thought, Tara turned away. "Oh, I bumped into the kid whose head you shaved," she said. "Just before I emptied my bag of hair and it didn't look like he had any more to contribute. I guess you left your broom with Remy in case of trouble?"

"Hey," Spike said, his voice somewhat muffled. "I didn't shave anybody. Don't go around accusing people of stuff just because they're trouble. I mean I could accuse your 'brother' of bringing those demons here through a dimensional portal just because he came through one himself."

She blinked. "What?"

"Yeah." Spike sighed. "That's what he told me."

Tara looked at the floor. After a moment, her mouth twitched in a slightly hurt smile. "I heard about the reality hopping that happened around Willow when she was high school. It kind of figures that the next bit would happen to _me_."

Behind the closed door, Spike leaned back in the dressing room's chair, crossed his legs and stared hard at the ceiling. "It does, doesn't it?"

##

"Well," Remy said bluntly, surprising Tara as she hadn't heard his approach. "It is a bit rude to not be givin' me th' time to come clean on my own, 'specially when the wait would've been so little, no?"

Tara took a few deep breaths to compose herself and turned around, her head raised to meet her brother's eyes. "I guess that portal that took you from your apartment to mom's grave wasn't just across the state?"

"Oh," Remy said, his blood-red eyes blinking in surprise. "No, I live in New York. Of course, that's beside th' point. Yeah, my home's in another reality. Our papa did appear to recognize me though, so I'm assuming there's only one pair of me and you."

"Hold up," Tara said, frowning as she thought over some of the details Willow had relayed to her. "Someone older than you who looks like you brings you_ back _to your family in another reality and you don't get suspicious? It doesn't occur to you that he could have collected you from our home because you look like him? Also, why didn't you mention this earlier?"

A frown flitted across Remy's face as he considered one of his more unusual father figures. It was true that, while he had proven helpful from time to time, the white-haired man wasn't the most _stable_ of characters...

"Don't be griping about me letting the cat out of the bag, either," Spike chimed in. "How was I supposed to know you didn't just nip out the back like I'm about to? Took your sweet time in getting here."

Remy stood his ground. "I don't like the term 'collected' as it might apply to me. It doesn't sound like the guy anyway. Yes, there was a prophecy about someone with our eyes and he might have arranged it so it didn't apply to him, but I like th' guy and I believe that if he'd seen something like that coming his way, he'd have stood his ground and taken it." He noticed that his fists had clenched as he talked, so he forced them to relax. "I was guarding some of the kids as we disposed of the frozen monkeys. The pottery shop has a kiln hot enough to burn hair. Please, _chere_, I just wanted to have a chance to get to know you, without you being overly suspicious."


	13. A Noted Theme and a Weighted Pillow

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

Tara turned her head away slightly and began studying the lines of Remy's jacket. "Don't get me wrong," she said, her breathing steady and even. "I'm still somewhat hurt. I can't hold it against you as I spent a year holding information that was actually_ relevant_ from people that already trusted me."

Spike opened the door, dressed in his normal clothes. He had been preparing to say something about her 'demon' issue and how he'd helped resolve it, but Tara met his eyes and gave a quick shake of her head, 'no.'

She sighed. "I'm going to need time to think."

"After this, Gambit will be keeping his head low and staying out of your sight for a few days," Remy said. "Meet you and Willow for lunch on Tuesday, pick up the pieces?"

"Sounds like a plan."

##

Tara's eyes traced the folds of the leather jacket and down across a sleeve to the hand that was still holding the prop broom. She gave Remy an odd look as an idea clicked in her head.

Grinning sheepishly, Remy tossed the broom into the dressing room where it landed with a clatter.

"Spike," she said, startling the vampire who had begun to edge away. "I saw a guy whose head was completely covered in razor burns. If you didn't shave him, who did?"

"Not me. The hair was in the sink when I, uh, came through the door. He could've been trying to fix the chunks in a haircut left by a monkey attack, or prevent them from picking him as a target." Spike's words lacked assurance as he could see the questions raised by the order of events.

"Wouldn't have helped him anyway," Remy said, his voice dark.

The cast onstage during the attack had suffered the worst. Once they were pinned to the ground and their head hair removed, the demons had started in on the light coating covering the rest of their skin. The teenagers were masses of scratches and bruises, with bright scarlet pinpricks of blood where the demons hadn't been careful enough.

Tara shuddered at the thought of sharp teeth severing her eyelashes, of strong hands holding her head in place. She could only imagine what it would've been like to have been a victim instead of a hero. "If I'd been attacked like that, I would be having nightmares for weeks. I'm glad they left Sarah's shirt alone, I know when I was her age..." Tara pictured the pawprint-shaped bruise she'd seen on the girl's neck. She was sure it had extended down below the collar, but the point was - she hadn't been able to _see_ it. "Wait. Why on Earth would they have any concept of modesty? They were animated hair. It's not like they didn't rip through the guys' armor."

Remy leaned against a wall, his eyes hard. "Th' only reason th' monkeys would've had for leaving her decent and for leaving pants intact, well, a few inches above the knee, I mean, is that they were told to. Specifically by someone who thinks that's all it takes to make everything be okay, even if he's caught."

"So, we're looking for a young bloke with fantasies, who's taking steps to censor himself." Spike glanced back into the dressing room. "Specifically a guy who used to have dark blonde hair. Not that we have any monkeys to test it on, but I'm willing to bet that was his that burned them and it wouldn't have worked with anyone else's. He must have worked that into the summoning contract, so that the creepy little things couldn't mob him."

Tara closed her eyes and tried to picture who the kid she'd seen might've been, but the shape of the skull was throwing her off. Hearing something, she opened her eyes to see that Remy had begun pacing back and forth, muttering to himself words like 'parchment' and 'monkey theme' and 'green.'

Spike decided he'd had enough. "What are you going on about?"

Remy straightened his shoulders and stared off, down the hallway. "I take it that, in this reality, you still need a summoning circle to keep things from blowing up in your face?"

Tara nodded. "It helps."

Remy suggested they split up and search.

"Right-o! I'll start with my crypt," Spike called, sarcastically, from his position by the back door, before he left the building.

Remy and Tara rolled their eyes. Noticing their shared response, they smiled warmly at each other for a second. Tara was the first to break it off.

While searching her section, Tara bumped into one of the remaining cast members who was breaking things down for the night. A short conversation netted her the fact that the guy who had been supposed to play the Wicked Witch had disappeared shortly before the attack.

Deciding to pass on the information, Tara found her brother kneeling inside a movable staircase, the light from the panel he'd left ajar revealing an ornate design of red paint coated by shards of green crystal.

"So," she said, remembering his muttered words. "How'd you know they'd be green?"

Remy looked up, smiling. "Giles filled me in on the details. T' make a long story short, if we can find dis guy and th' binding spell he stole, things should be getting better."

Tara passed on the likely culprit's role in the play. "Sorry," she said. "He has the right hair color, but neither of us could remember his name."

* * *

Remy hunched low on his perch, studying a house that had, apparently, gone to bed.

His feet were resting on one of the boards that helped the high fence surrounding the back of the house keep its shape.

His hand brushing just above the pamphlet Spike had slipped back into his jacket, the one with the name 'Andrew Wells' printed on it, Remy silently leapt into the yard, leaving the house's view of the suburban night once more quiet and unbroken.

##

Remy carefully examined the backpack, which looked like Indiana Jones had exploded.

Hauling it onto the desk, he began an appraisal of its contents. The most important thing, to him, was an intact copy of the binding spell the Maddox crystal witches used in controlling their creatures. This he quickly folded and slipped into one of his pockets.

He also found a couple of white oblong things, the color and texture of frog bellies, inside of a clear plastic baggie marked 'Knockout Gas.' Not wanting to take chances, he tossed the baggie out of the window, hoping to take care of it later.

"Oh, this is _too_ easy," Remy said quietly to himself as he flicked on the desk lamp.

##

Breaking into the house had been a matter of routine. Not many people made a habit of locking second-story bedroom windows. Beyond his appraisal of the lackluster security system, finding the right one had been the trickiest part.

Easing himself into a chair, he cast a glance over at the sleeping form of Andrew Wells, the young man's chest rising and falling steadily. Remy shook his head, angled the chair so he would notice any changes in breathing, and began leafing through Andrew's diary.

The first thing he had noticed about the thin book, which had unimaginatively been hidden in a sock drawer, was the odd amount of space between the binding and the pages. There was a memory card taped to the inside of the front cover, with the words 'Video Journal Behind The Scenes Of My School Play' written across the white space above.

Deciding he didn't have time to fiddle around with the data, Remy focused on the text.

##

Remy had entered the house, not only to find the stolen parchment, but to deal with the young man who, directly and indirectly, had been causing trouble for his sister and her friends. Being fairly confident in his ability to plan his way around most things, given enough time, Remy was gathering as much information as he could on Andrew, especially whether or not the young man's premeditated act had been a first offense.

"If push comes to shove," Remy murmured, tapping the bulge in his jacket lightly. "Gambit has come armed."

##

The first inkling that Andrew had that anything was wrong was the feeling of suffocation as a pillow was thrust into his face. With a muffled yelp he began thrashing in bed as a strong hand grabbed his wrist and started tying an arm to the bedpost. Opening his eyes, he could just make out a man's shoulder pressing down on the pillow, brown hair swinging wildly as he continued his work.

Once the arm was restrained, the man shifted his weight and, suddenly, Andrew was staring up into a pair of eyes - what should have been the whites were jet-black and the irises resembled burning coals.

Andrew freaked out even further. After a few seconds, sweat beading down his forehead, he forced himself to relax.

"Good." Remy nodded. "I'm going to move th' pillow soon. I know the traditional thing to do here is to say that bad things will happen to your family if you scream, but I'm not going to do that. The fact is, I'm only here because of you. Keep that in mind. I'm here, right now, because of _you_, and they're _out_ there. Trust me now, you don't want me getting _creative_."

Andrew spent a few seconds gasping for air when the pillow was removed. When his eyes had stopped watering he turned to Remy with a large grin on his face. "Oh, my God! Your eyes are so cool. If I overdose on magic, can I get them too?"

Shaking his head in disgust, Remy sat down in the chair he'd moved into position. "I believe you may be overlooking th' seriousness of dis conversation." He held up Andrew's diary, charging it until it glowed purple. "You want to lose this?"

"So, what?" Andrew's eyes involuntarily flicked over to his Star Wars collectibles. "It's just words."

"Yeah. And what words dey are." After reversing the charge, Remy started leafing through the diary, tearing out pages that he felt were appropriate.

"Hey! Stop that!"

Remy sneered. "Dis is not a time for you to be setting rules." He folded two pages in such a way that certain paragraphs were clearly shown, then flicked them over to Andrew condescendingly. He leaned back in the chair, rested his boots on Andrew's Millennium Falcon sheets and waited for a response.

_Clearly from those items she was experienced with at least some form of magic, _read the first page. It was dated Tuesday, three days before._ I decided then I'd catch a ride with Cyrus the same time she did and see where she was dropped off._ The second page described how he'd snuck out of the play rehearsal the next day. _I'd timed my raid on Tara's apartment for when I knew she'd be occupied awhile. Even so, I donned my mask of Gribblet skin and slid one of their gas bladders down the hallway towards her door. The resultant explosion resulted in a __**Ker-Thunk! **__from the apartment facing hers. Apparently the occupant there had been standing close enough to his or her door to receive a full dose of the gas._

_Moving through the clouds, I proceeded to _finesse_ the lock. Inside I found, to my disappointment, that she was a practitioner of Wicca. Stupid, wishy-washy, tree-huggers. Give me internal darkness, internal __**might**__, any day. More importantly, I found from the picture on her dresser that she was a follower of Willow the Red, hacker extraordinaire, who had helped save my old highschool from meanies like my brother before it was blown up. I found it shameful I wasn't as technically minded. That would have been a great opportunity to install a spycam... _

"Ha!" Andrew sneered and tossed the pages to the floor. "You're more interested in that than the play? And you call yourself a hero. Yeah, that's right, I saw you. I may not have had the best view of the play but it was good enough to see the role you played in the final battle against the monkeys!" He rose to his feet dramatically, but a glare from Remy had him sitting back down.

Remy shook his head. From what it said in the diary, after Andrew had summoned the monkeys, his next action had been to shave his head to 'avoid suspicion.' He'd then taken the long way around to the old elevated soundbooth, sometime after Remy, Tara and Spike had vacated it.

Something dark crept into Remy's eyes and he leaned in to show it off better. "She's my sister."

The blood drained from Andrew's face. "Oh, _shit_."

* * *

On a bluff overlooking Andrew's house, a fair distance away, Ben dropped the paper he was holding. Frustrated, he began kicking spell materials around the rough ground, but kept enough control that he didn't send any flying over the edge. Most of the items he'd been able to scrounge from his sister's goons, fear of Glory had been enough to keep them in line, but the rest he'd had to buy at the magic store in town.

"I can't believe it," he groaned. "I have to summon this thing twice? I guess an alien demon has to be arriving from pretty far away. You'd think it'd be able to home in on the initial signal, but _no_..."

Sighing, Ben held his head in his hands and sat down in the moist earth. He had worked his way through medical school despite the rumbling of his sister's power. He had worked hard and now he was having to clean up his sister's mess. He had enough trouble getting sleep as it was without having to do _magic_.

His trip to the Magic Box had been weird enough even without the red-eyed demon arguing with the owner. Ben had hovered quietly enough in the background until it was time to purchase his supplies that he doubted either of them would be able to recognize him. Grimacing, he pictured waking up one morning to find that _demon_ in his living room as part of Glory's recruiting drive.

"At least the demon I'm summoning has the good grace_ not _to look human." Glancing at the paper lying on the ground and its sketch of the grub-like demon, Ben shuddered. "Seems I'll have to restock and come back here tomorrow. Definitely not a trip I'm looking forward to."

* * *

"Also," Remy said, his face a few inches from Andrew's. "I find the dream you had about my _sister_ t' be _completely_ unnecessary."

Andrew felt the edges of his vision go blurry. Gulping, he pulled himself back from the brink of fainting.

Remy leaned back and fished out a page. "May I quote? You're a winged monkey, straight out of the movie, except you're a little bit bulkier. Tara's in her Glinda dress and she doesn't have any hands. You force her to the ground and, pressing your weight into her, you rip-"

"Hey," Andrew shouted, the color rushing back into his cheeks.

Remy flapped the paper directly in front of Andrew's face, shocking him into silence.

They both remained quiet for a few seconds, listening for signs that someone had heard the sudden noise.

There weren't any.

"Hey," Andrew continued in a softer tone. "If it weren't for that dream I wouldn't have known how to make the monkeys safe. I didn't want anything like that to happen. I'm doing this for fun. For practice. I want to _impress_ people. If I acted like that in real life... I mean, uh, if I let that happen, then people would run from me, leave me, and not in a_ good _way."

"For one thing, th' appearance of safety has nuthin' to do with the actuality. For another, you know the little sketch you drew of that scene?" Remy paused, waiting for a 'yeh' from Andrew before continuing. "I was looking at the winged monkey and his victim. The long-haired one in the dress? It isn't Tara. It's _you_."

"What!" Andrew reached out and grabbed the paper from Remy's hand, suddenly oblivious to any danger. "Let me see. Huh. Oh, my God..."

* * *

Tara came home to find Willow in bed, already waiting for her.

She woke up as Tara snuggled in next to her.

"Where've you been?" Willow smiled sleepily. "I mean I was out patrolling with Xander and Giles and you've been out even later. I couldn't even stay awake until you got here and the kitten was lonely."

Tara sighed. "I had to take Remy by Sunnydale Memorial," she said, referring to the main hospital in town. "He's fine. I'm fine. We weren't the ones who... Long story. We can go over it later. How was your day?"

"Sucky. Exhausting. I mean I was so awesome! I dusted two vampires." Willow started swinging her arms around, completely messing up the bedcovers. "Like that! Take that! But we shouldn't have been so worn out by the end of it. I mean it's bad enough that Buffy's spending the night with her mom in the hospital, hoping she doesn't get worse before the doctors can do everything they can do to make her better, but that _stupid_ Riley Finn was supposed to go patrolling with us - and he never even showed up!"


	14. A Bad Summoner and an Intervention

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers. The Kingpin's quote comes, more or less, from an episode in the animated series. As far as I know, his attitude carries over to the comics.

We've started the first night of Season Five's 'Listening to Fear'. My thanks to_ BuffyWorld dot com_ for providing shooting scripts full of stage directions and dialog that didn't make the final cut of the show.

* * *

Remy idly flipped back to the first page of the journal, where it read, opposite the memory card:_ Monday - Well, so much for impressing my brother's friends with my storytelling skills... Now I'll have to do this the _hard_ way..._

"Dis all happened because you're living in Tucker's shadow?" Remy spoke smoothly and softly, shaking Andrew out of his shocked state. "_Non,_ I think you're using the boy as an excuse. You're afraid of being different than him. Whenever you try to do something dat he _couldn't _do, ever, like being _creative_, you set yourself up to fail. Dis is why you broke th' video camera."

"No." Andrew stomped his bare feet on the carpet. "Cyrus did that, him and the sandbags. He's the reason I decided to take my revenge on the play. He's why I released the monkeys ahead of my scene where I was supposed to summon them, as the witch, with the golden cap. I had to time it so he'd be on the stage when they attacked."

Remy nodded. "I took th' time to meet th' guy after the play. You set him up to be quite the hero. He was strong enough to be the first one to his feet when Tara started her magic. He could've tried running on his own, but he wouldn't leave the stage without saving at least one person. Football player. Handsome, no? I could see the muscles on his scratched-up chest but I'd never have known just how covered in 'luxuriant' hair dey had been without your detailed entry on him..."

"I don't think I like what you're implying."

"Denial and repression. I believe those were your first sins, th' ones dat spiraled out into everything else. As a first step, you need to accept th' fault for your own actions. You were the one who 'borrowed' your parents' video camera without permission and _you_ were the one that took it into an area you knew to be dangerous. Accidents happen, but you made the consequences worse by putting something unnecessary at risk."

Andrew's lip curled up in disgust. That clearly was not something he wanted to hear.

"Speaking of faults," Remy said, rising to his feet in order to pace around the room. "We need to talk about why you make a bad summoner, a bad supervillain and a bad human."

Andrew's eyes narrowed at the last word. He muttered, faintly, 'You're one to talk.'

With apparent calmness, Remy walked up to Andrew, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him up to meet his blood-red eyes. "I've met many bad things in my time. The worst of them - mad scientists without conscience, aliens driven by hunger and obsession, demons running on fear and hate - all have one thing in common. Dey want me to be just like them,_ too._"

Andrew blinked and tried not to struggle. "Hey, I'm not racist. If there's one thing Star Wars taught us, it's that monocultural stratified systems can't win."

Remy released his grip. Sitting back in the chair, he fished out a deck of cards. Without appearing to glance at the pack, he withdrew the King of Clubs. With two fingers, he held it up to the side of his face. "Pop quiz," he said, charging the card. The painted king's expression seemed to take on a skeletal grin. "Who did you hurt the most - who did you _destroy_ with your attack on the play?"

"Uh, Sarah? Cyrus? Myself?" Sweat beaded down Andrew's forehead as he rattled off a list of increasingly unlikely names, including Jonathan's and Tara's. "Uh... You're here. I didn't somehow kill you, did I?"

After withdrawing almost all the charge from the card, Remy flicked it into the air. The card burst apart with a soft pop, sending ash raining down on Andrew's head.

"No." Remy frowned. "Listen to yourself, you just denied being 'racist' and then backed up your claim not with the concept that others have the right to exist but with the fact that you're capable of recognizing them as _useful._ You view those 'lesser' than you as tools, things made to serve a purpose and then easily discarded."

"Oh, yeah? Name one person I've treated like that."

"Allow me to build up to th' reveal. I can charge inanimate objects until they explode. I can't charge living beings. I can charge zombies raised by outside entities. I can charge _hair._ Before we resorted to burning the frozen monkeys, I tried exterminating them myself, especially the bits of sheared hair they'd weaved into themselves. The charge didn't take. Whatever else they were, whatever mystical power fueled them, my power recognized them as 'alive.' And you killed them."

* * *

In the seedier part of town, where warehouses came to die, Riley sat in a darkened room. He shuddered as fangs pierced his arm. His mind filled with the rush of pain and the knowledge that he was no longer in control.

He loved it.

This was what he lived for.

He was tired of performing as a soldier. He was tired of the walls that Buffy had formed around herself, of the secrets she was keeping. He had been physically stronger once, due to experiments done without his consent.

He loved Buffy, but he had realized that, regardless of whether or not he could be enough for her, she wouldn't let him _be _enough for her. She would always want something else, something darker.

All the vampire on his arm wanted was his blood and his money.

He had killed the first vampire to invite him into a consensual relationship. She had been beautiful and well-spoken, both of which had appealed to him as a man. She had been sired by a vampire version of one of his friends from an alternate universe, which really appealed to his scientist/commando leanings. He'd spent his time with his unit collecting rare demons like some people collect pokemon.

He regretted the fact that, without the right equipment, he'd had no chance to truly compare her physiology to that of the purely 'native' vampires before he'd taken her life. He also regretted, faintly, that he'd staked the only vampire to approach him who he might have, some day, actually wanted to know as a person.

All he was left with now was a series of meaningless business transactions.

##

And the rush.

* * *

Remy continued speaking, over Andrew's protests. "I'm not saying dat you meant for them to die. I'm saying dat you sent them to attack a place guarded by someone you knew to be a hero, in a town where she could easily call for help. When the hero's backup arrived, you gave no order to withdraw or to regroup. You let things take their course. Your spell resulted in a horde of entities and you could have just as easily disrupted the play with a quarter of them, holding the rest back for another day. You could, without effort, have had a self-sustaining group of loyal, or at least controlled, minions. Something for you to care for. Something for you to care about. And now you have _nothing_."

##

"Dis thing about stealing th' spells to unlock and bind th' crystal?" Remy paid close attention to Andrew's eyes as they slid over to the ransacked backpack. Remy smirked. It was nice for him to know the young man was predictable. "Not a good idea either. These are heroes you're talking about. Do you know what dat means on a basic level?"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't mess with the good guys."

"Wrong. Some people need a good antagonist. Makes them stronger. The best villains are the ones who the good guys respect, the ones who they'll know will stick by their ideology in a moment of crisis. Even the worst mobster in Manhattan, a man who's orchestrated hundreds of deaths, can be counted on to stay true to himself. His words, more or less: 'I am a businessman. The destruction of the world is bad for business. Therefore, I, and my _vast_ resources, are, for now, at your disposal.'"

Andrew tilted his head suspiciously at Remy. Fingering the cord that kept his arm restrained to the bed, he waited for the other shoe to drop.

Remy leaned back in the chair and spread his arms. "You can't mess around wi' stuff you don't understand, stuff you don't have th' background on. If you saw a hero you didn't like chasing a bank robber, you couldn't just stick out your foot and trip the good guy. What if the robber had already tied explosives to some hostages and he was fleeing with the deactivation code? Wouldn't their deaths be on your head?"

"Hey." Andrew sneered. "I_ needed_ that crystal. My reasons weren't 'pure' so I couldn't get it the honest method, but I knew they'd save me. If I study the binding spells I'll be able live up to my improved reputation. I'd have given the parchment to the good guys already, if I thought I could get it back. I'll be done with it in six months, maybe a year, tops. Whatever's in their crystal isn't getting any older. They're resourceful. They'll be able to pull _something _out of their ass. The world's not ending because I blocked one route to them... It isn't, right?"

Remy sighed. "Truth be told, I don't know. Dey don't even know _what_ they're dealing with, besides a form and a name. Things are bad though, and they're going to get worse."

Andrew had been brooding about something. "Wait a second. What about the bad guys with ideals like world destruction or complete unpredictability?"

Remy felt an involuntary shudder course through his body as he flashed back to what had been done to him and the people of his New York in the name of _comedy_. Shaking his head, he forced a smile onto his face. "Yeah, but you don't want to be like them, do you? You want what's best for yourself, right? You want freedom to pursue your own goals. You want to have resources so you can tell stories and collect things that remind you of truly_ potent_ stories. You want to create. You want to destroy. You want the rush."

Andrew closed his eyes, imagining what the world would be like if he had the power to walk away and create his own.

As Remy looked at the expression of pure bliss on the young man's face, he felt something snap inside him. "Of course," he said, reaching into his pocket. "The mobster I mentioned? You don't want to be like him either."

When something bumped into Andrew's chest, he opened his eyes. Looking down, he saw a photograph falling to the sheets. It was a face with bruises.

As Andrew's face and shaved head turned pale, shock and betrayal filling his being, Remy finished the sentence. "Because he has blood on his hands."

Remy tossed another photo at Andrew, then spread the rest in his hands like they were cards and he was about to do a magic trick. Holding his arms apart, he arced the photos smoothly from one hand to the other as if each was attached to the one behind it.

The grin on Remy's face was still there, but it was hard and his eyes were cold. He tossed photos one by one onto the bed, each focusing on a different injury sustained by the people of the play. Several showed attempts to capture the pain in the victims' eyes. They'd been taken at the auditorium, for the more stable ones, and at the hospital, for the rest.

"Scratches. Bruises. Shock," Remy intoned. "Nightmares. Fear. These people took pride in their appearance and in their acting ability. They were brave enough to go on stage. Instead of giving them your thanks you gave them something barely on dis side of _rape_. You released things that were strong and you gave them permission to take what they wanted without worrying about the consequences. You gave them th' _appearance_ of modesty but rape... It's about forcing your will upon others, stripping them of choice, forcing them to react and acknowledge you, using them as a means to an end. For you, it's about power and the destruction of what you _want._"

"I-"

"I don't know how dis crypt of witches worked, but you must have been repressin' your rage hard not to have seen it sooner. You're attracted to certain things about certain people dat you don't want to be and you hate yourself for it and you hate them for letting you feel that way. You went into the crypt and came out with a tool that would let you express the worst of what was in you and it clouded the issue so you couldn't _learn_ from it. Nah, Gambit be giving that too much credit. You did it yourself."

Andrew stared at a bruise that had formed below a ripped pant leg and realized that while he had set limits on where the demons would have to stop their search for hair and what clothing would have to remain intact, he'd set no limit on where they could put their _hands_. Beyond the avoidance of death and broken bones, he'd set no limit on what they could do to restrain a person, where they could put their _weight._

"Most of these people are going to have nightmares for years. They've suffered at the hands of demons in a society that doesn't believe in them. Half of them won't see a psychiatrist because they'll be afraid the first thing their 'treatment' would include is the attempted destruction of a 'false memory.' Instead of being confident people many of them will be empty shells, scared of their own shadow. Some of them, now given a taste of the darkness th' world can hold and afraid of the darkness they carry inside them, will lash out at others, jus' like _you._"

Andrew began to cry.

##

Remy stepped out the window and closed it behind him. A short time later, he eased open another second-story window on the house and climbed into Tucker's bedroom.

After locking the door, Remy moved around the space, making himself comfortable. It appeared that, while Andrew's older brother hadn't slept there in awhile, presumably because he had a dorm room at school, the bed was in good repair.

That late at night, Remy wasn't about to go around hitting up his sister's friends for a place to stay. From what he knew of magic there was going to be a lot of rushing around the next morning, so he was going to get a good night's rest.

* * *

After making sure that his window was wide open, Andrew prepared a small bowl with coals from his summoning supplies and set them alight. One by one he dropped the photos of the victims into the fire, watching each as they burned down to white ash.

When he was fairly confident his tears had run out and the involuntary sobbing had mostly stopped, he cleaned his face, pulled out his ravaged diary and began to write.

_He almost had me there. He just _had_ to push it, didn't he? Oh, yes, my dear Readers, I have not described him yet. I will save that for a better time. This man came to me, tonight, as sort of an intervention, but he was_** petty **_and he made me cry. If I truly wanted to seek redemption for my sins then I know now what I would have to do. I would have to give up what they have gained for me._

_There is a D&D game next week and I have bought a seat at it with the tears of others. I will be there and I will be happy. True change can not be forced. It has to come from within. Someone has attempted to push me from my path onto the straight and narrow but all he has done is shown me some of my mistakes and shown me some of his. I hope to look back at this moment and know that this was key in all that has come to pass, but it will be my own future. If it has to be forged with the pain of others then _so be it.

_At least I'll know what I'm doing._

##

After blowing out the coals, he went to bed. His wrist had been rubbed raw from where he'd had to work his way free of the cords on his own.

* * *

It was sometime past sunrise, Saturday morning.

##

Andrew was wearing a long-sleeved shirt to help hide the abrasion just above his hand.

##

Mr. Wells was a tall man with glasses. Standing behind his chair, he leaned down to set some grapefruit on the table, with the intention of sitting down later on, once he'd prepared his cup of coffee.

Mrs. Wells was a short woman with brown hair. That morning, she was still working on fixing the rest of their breakfast.

"Pardon me, sir." Remy eased behind Mr. Wells on his way to the front door, careful to brush against the man as little as possible.

Andrew spluttered, his spoon clattering noisily into his bowl of cheerios.

##

After opening the door and stepping onto the threshold, Remy turned and gave them his most charming grin. There was a sparkle in his eyes and his hair was freshly showered. "You better watch that boy," he said. "He's into some pretty weird stuff."

Remy walked away, leaving the front door wide open.

##

Mrs. Wells was the first to recover enough to speak, but her expression was still one of utter shock. "_Andrew_!"

"Mom!"


	15. A Swift Kick and a Bright Flash of Light

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

* * *

Rodney crossed the room to his front door. The motion detector he'd installed was blinking green. Spying on the girl across the hallway had proven to be a cushy job - not only could he do it from the safety of his living room, for the most part, he didn't even have to be particularly alert.

Peering through the peephole, he was rewarded by the sight of Remy leaning against Tara's door, probably trying to hear if anyone was moving about inside.

Rodney checked his watch. From the time that Tara had come home, an hour or so after her girlfriend had let herself into the dorm room, he expected they were still asleep or pretty much close to it, looking forward to a day free of classes.

Looking to the peephole again, Rodney saw only an empty hallway.

#

About fifteen minutes later, the motion detector went off again. When he checked, he still couldn't see anybody.

Hearing a faint scratching sound, he looked towards his doorframe. A thin piece of metal had been worked through from the other side to touch the bolt holding the top door hinge in place. As he watched, a second piece of metal emerged to touch the bottom one.

Before he could do anything else, the metal bits that ensured his door worked like a door and not a giant slab of wood glowed brightly and exploded with sharp, clear bangs.

His jaw dropping open, Rodney turned back towards the peephole. Alarm bells were going off in his head even as he did so, but he'd done it so often over the past month he couldn't really stop himself.

He was rewarded with the sight of Remy's metal-shod boot heading directly for the peephole - and, therefore, his face.

"_Oh, sh_i-," Rodney said, his words broken off by the door falling on top of him.

He must have passed out for a second or two, because the next thing he knew he was on his back, staring into a pair of blood-red eyes as a pair of strong hands held him by his shirt.

Remy released Rodney, who scuttled back a few feet across the ground.

"You may be thinkin', why is Gambit here?" Remy leaned against the door which he had wedged pretty much back into place. "Well, let's jus' say I read somethin' that jogged my memory of how you led me astray th' other day. My sister, she not one to be able to be in two places at once. Not only dat, you have an awful habit of looking out that peephole."

Pausing for a moment, Remy pulled out his staff. Without appearing to look, he gave the motion detector a swift blow that sent pieces flying across the room.

Rodney whimpered.

"From the setup you have in here, it looks like you think you have an awful good reason to." Remy nodded his head towards the sleeping area at the back of the dorm. "This, and that little posterboard you have set up in your bedroom depicting the people close to Tara. Saw dat before I come in. For someone who spends his time spying on people, you have a bad habit of not closing your blinds. Me an' you? We're going to have_ words_."

* * *

It had taken Remy a while to get the girls organized and dressed. Phone calls had to be made as well but, eventually, the three of them made it out the door.

Remy, Willow and Tara were cutting across Sunnydale U's Quad, toward the parking lot where Giles would be picking them up, when Willow looked up and immediately looked down again, blushing.

"There's someone naked, hanging from the flagpole," Willow muttered.

"Oh," Tara said, looking up. Her gaze was steady. "He's not naked, he's wearing that climbing gear. It's almost like-"

Willow, her eyes still focused firmly on the ground, hit her girlfriend in the arm to keep her from further comment. Wrapping her hand around Tara's arm, Willow hurried them away from the scene.

"Well," Remy said, a step or two behind, his voice light. "Even though it's the weekend, I'm sure _someone _will help him down eventually."

* * *

Ben smiled at the brown-haired woman who was ringing up the final purchases that he needed to finish summoning a Queller demon. He much preferred the pretty woman to the male shopkeeper, even though she seemed a bit_ too_ happy whenever she sold something.

The bell over the door to the Magic Box dinged and he looked over to see the group filing into the store. Recognizing the red-eyed man from the day before as well as the red-haired woman who sometimes visited Mrs. Summers in the hospital, Ben freaked out slightly, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket as if that would make him seem less conspicuous.

It seemed to work as the group bypassed him completely, chattering amongst themselves as they headed towards the back of the store.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief and collected his purchases, not noticing that his moment of panic had dislodged a torn piece of paper from his clothes to land on the floor.

He left the store in peace.

##

Noticing the conversation and the general lack of other people to sell things to, Anya left the counter to see what was going on.

"Hello. I do hope that, however handsome he may be, he," she said to Giles, indicating Remy. "Is going to be buying things with his own money and not another person we give things to simply because they're friends of the owner."

Giles sighed. "Well, yes, even though making money and running a business is important I'm afraid that saving the world will always be our number one priority. After all, it would be hard to run a business if no-one made the effort."

Remy chuckled darkly at the statement. After receiving several odd looks, he held out his hand to Anya in greeting. "My name is Remy, though I often go by 'Gambit.' You must be Anya, I've heard impressive things about how you run dis store. It seems like th' place would collapse without you. They're truly lucky to have someone around who sees the world like you can through your eyes."

Anya metaphorically melted into a pile of goo.

Willow nudged Tara. "See," Willow whispered. "He's charming when he talks to other people. I wonder why he's so awkward around you?"

"Hey, I'm his sister," Tara said. Still, she frowned, thinking that there was something more to it than that. Tara had the ability to read some things from auras and Remy's had flared brightly when he was introducing himself to Anya.

Tara decided she'd have to observe Remy more closely around other people, but she knew for certain the same thing hadn't happened when she'd met her brother for the first time...

##

"Oh, hey," Xander said as he walked into the store. "I hope nobody started without me."

Anya blinked, found she been hugging a shelf for support and began brushing imaginary dirt off her clothes, faintly embarrassed. "Yes, that would be my boyfriend, so please keep your very interesting self to yourself in the future, mister. Understood?"

Remy grinned and nodded appropriately.

Xander looked around and smiled. "Looks like the gang's all here, except for..." His smile faltered. "Well, Buffy."

Giles sighed. "We simply can't ask her to leave her mother's bedside. Better we leave her out of this for now. Besides, we have the binding spells and a magic store at our disposal. Why should anything go wrong?"

As Xander walked towards the rest of the group, something rustled under his feet. He bent over to pick it up.

"Oh," Anya said, rushing over. She vaguely remembered seeing something that color yellow sticking out of her last customer's jacket. "If that's important, maybe we could expect someone to come back for it. He'll be so grateful to have it back, he'll buy more stuff while he's here. Remind me again why we don't put a thirty-minute forget spell on people's wallets when they have them on the counter?"

"Because all it takes is one resistant but observant person and then," Xander said, handing the paper to Anya. "Uh, you might have the same thing happen to you next time you went shopping, but with someone dishonest enough to actually keep it."

One look at the paper made Anya's face turn a bright red. It was most of a page torn from the 'M' section of the yellow pages, the bottom half of which displayed a cheery sketch of the Magic Box complete with the slogan: '_Your One-Stop Spot to Shop for all your Occult Needs - Let Us Make It Easy!_'

Ben had torn it out of the phonebook the day before without a second thought, simply because he was that kind of person.

"What kind of an asshole would do something like that?" Anya headed to the counter and started rifling around the supplies. "We pay good money for advertising!"

"Uh, honey. What are you doing? Are you going to summon some kind of Demon of Squelched Business Opportunities?"

"No," she said, pulling out a pair of scissors and tape. "I'm going to try and salvage this, maybe stick it somewhere eye-catching, like the cash register, or the front window, or copy those interesting 'Kick-Me' signs and put it on the back of Giles' coat."

"Ah, Anya," Giles called. "While you're over there, what the blazes did you do with the purple crystal I retrieved a few days ago? It's not in the 'To Be Sorted - Not For Sale Or Discard' box where I left it."

"Oh." Anya spun around and pointed to the glass display counter. After a few seconds, she walked over and grabbed the crystal herself, turning it over to reveal the 'not for sale' sticker on the bottom. "It wasn't being useful in there so I set it out where it'd be pretty and possibly make customers feel better about spending money."

Giles raised an eyebrow, then pulled his glasses off in order to clean them. "We're going to have to have another talk about what rights I reserve as owner of the store, the final disbursement and storage of 'found' artifacts being one of them."

##

There was a small research party, mainly to confirm that everything would work as advertised. The group sat around the table, books and supplies piled in front of them. Xander idly spun the crystal as he read, until Giles stopped him with an 'ahem,' took the crystal away and, after a bit, began idly spinning it himself.

Tara reported that, from what she could make of the compacted aura, there were no more than two entities trapped in the crystal.

Remy nodded. "Would make sense, after all, th' defending horde of monkey spiders matched up pretty well with Andrew's flying monkeys. In shape and number at least. So, we're looking for a single creature worth th' price of the elemental."

"Yeah." Xander tilted his head in thought. "From what you said, the guy was given something that aligned with parts of his personality he was repressing. Therefore, we should expect a leather-wearing alcoholic who wants to sleep with Buffy's mom."

Giles coughed. Willow buried her head in her hands.

"Oh, hey. That might actually go for my creature too." Xander raised his hand. "Everyone who thinks that Joyce is hot please raise their hands."

At least two more hands went up.

Remy smirked, deciding this was something he wanted to investigate for himself.

Anya took note of Remy's expression and kicked him from across the table.

##

Willow put a pair of earmuffs on the crystal and, using her laptop, pulled up an instructional video for Giles on the proper way to play a set of panpipes.

Tara took advantage of the lull in conversation to pull Remy deeper into the shelves. "So, really," she asked. "How'd it go with Andrew?"

Remy sighed. He wanted to be open with his sister, but there were some parts of himself he wanted to keep back. "Didn't think I was dat transparent. Yeah, wasn't as simple as I made it sound."

Tara felt slightly guilty about using aura-reading to pick up on Remy's emotions, but it wasn't as if she hadn't just shown off her skills to the group. "What happened?"

"Thought I had an edge, one dat would help with th' connection." Remy shook his head, then forced a smile onto his face. "Gambit, he was jus' like him once. All gangly and hard edges. Had acne an' braces to boot. Not th' best time, but I wouldn't trade it for th' world. It left me wi' the ability to understand people in dat situation, as well as a healthy desire for most things 'geek.'"

"Except..." Remy sighed. "You ever see th' point approaching where you know dat a dark side of your personality is going to take over an' you jus' let it? Because otherwise, you'd have to leave? There was dis man who killed one of my friends growing up, because I made a choice. Later on in life, I wound up recruiting him for a job that went sour. I should've known better, dat it would all end in tears, simply because he was th' right guy for it, but I called him in anyway."

"There was dis point in time where I had a place of safety and he intruded on it. He had amnesia, to where he didn't remember his name was 'Sabertooth.' We kept watch over him, because he was a murderer, but some of us thought he could be redeemed. I wanted him to suffer, because I had to live with th' memories of how he'd affected me. Of th' defenseless women and children he'd slaughtered. You know th' pictures I took when we visited the play victims at the hospital? I printed out a similar sheaf for Creed except, because he had been doing it for a_ lot_ longer, they were much, much worse."

"So I show them to this guy, confront him wi' his past and it's at a point where his blank mind has already given him a point of empathy for his victims. He breaks down right away and I keep pushin' and I keep pushin'. In the end, it seems dat all I did for his empathy was 'cure' him of it."

Tara frowned. "So, when you used a similar method on Andrew, in order to get him to make that first connection with the people he hurt-"

"_C'est exact_." Remy nodded. "I was tryin' to redeem myself. Not as effective as I hoped. Didn't handle myself as well as I wanted to. Th' boy still needs to be watched, but I know for certain I didn't make things worse."

##

They set up the summoning circle in the back room of the Magic Box, which had been renovated as a training area for Buffy. Giles sat cross-legged in the center of the adorned practice mat, with the crystal and the other implements surrounding him. Remy stood guard outside the circle, his staff held ready. Xander tried to lounge in a threatening manner.

Giles lit the candles in a clockwise fashion with a long-handled lighter. Holding the musical instrument at an angle where he could comfortably blow across the bamboo pipes, he began to play.

Adjusting his position so his legs were no longer crossed, the agreed upon signal for when the spell was about to take effect, Giles played the parchment's last line of notes. There was a sharp, shattering sound and a flash of light that filled the room. In the midst of the brighter light an almost electrical whirlwind of blue sparks leapt from the remains of the crystal and gained substance.

Giles scrambled to his feet and raised his head to meet the eyes of the monster that had appeared in the room.

He was a large creature, with red hair that dropped to his shoulders and slightly curved horns that reached several inches above his head. His face was greyish-green. His eyebrows and beard were bushy and unkept.

Giles started to address the monster, stammered slightly, and started over again in a firmer tone. "By the ancient compact of the Maddox crystal witches, I believe that, uh, I am your master and you will do as I say."

"That is the case, puny human," the creature rumbled. "Be warned that my personality is intact and I require** massive** volumes of meat, ale and mead in order to stay alert and sociable."

After taking note of the studded leather straps stretched across the rough fabric of the creature's shirt, Xander nudged Tara with his elbow. "Told ya it would be an alcoholic."

Curiosity got the better of Willow, so she leaned over. Sure enough, the 'Not For Sale' sticker was stuck to the seat of the creature's trousers.

Giles shrugged slightly. "So, in order that I may better issue you commands and, ahem, offer you hospitality, I request that you identify yourself."

"Tell them my name, Anyanka," the creature rumbled. "Unless the years have worn harder on your brain than your supple figure."

Everyone turned to look at Anya.

She sighed and glanced briefly at her toes. "He's Olaf. He's a troll. The hammer he's holding increases his power, although he's already pretty buff." Anya turned to look Xander in the eyes and moved her hand in a sweeping gesture. "He was human when I dated him. I turned him into a troll, like the ones he loved to fight, when the adrenaline rush of battle and ale sent him into the arms of a less attractive barmaid. He broke my heart, so I took away his pleasant complexion. Oh, that's also how I became a Vengeance Demon in the first place. D'Hoffryn liked my style."

"Yes!" Olaf roared. "It is a wonderful style too. As you can see, I've adjusted. I've even adapted to the taste of roasted babies with heaping mounds of carrots and oxen gravy."

"Understandably," Giles said as he began to polish his glasses. "That will be off the menu."

##

"Don't worry, Giles. It'll be great." Willow beamed. "He'll just be like a giant pet. And if he acts up and it doesn't work out I can send him away to Troll World - or, at least somewhere reasonably close to it. You know, a place where he'll have fun."

Olaf glared at her. "I don't like witches much, either."

"Oh." Willow put her hand to her mouth. "Because of the entire cage thing? I can see how that'd be a bummer. But, hey, at least you're only bound this time by metaphysical structures. We won't even have to physically lock you in at night."

Tara whispered to Remy. "I don't much like the idea of keeping someone intelligent who used to be human as a pet. Then again, Willow's kept one of her classmates in a rat cage for two years, so I can see why she'd be for it. Of course, Amy's not exactly herself..."

##

"Hey, Giles, I'm sorry." Xander patted the older man on the shoulder. "That entire thing I said about repression? If you've been wanting to be Anya's ex-boyfriend that badly, you should've said something sooner."


	16. An Occupation and an Odd Expression

BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.

Yep, have released Olaf the Troll from 'Triangle' two episodes early. My thanks to _BuffyWorld dot com _for reference material including shooting scripts full of stage directions and cut , why him? Ever since reading Speaker-to-Customers' Merry Sport at _Twisting the Hellmouth_ - _tthfanfic dot org slash Story-9152_ - I've wanted to see Olaf as a useful member of the Scoobies, although his Olaf, by the power of coolness, has cleric abilities. Oh, yes. The linked fic, while, in my opinion, very cute, definitely earns its FR21 rating. :)

* * *

Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, Remy decided to instruct Olaf in the fine art of the fist bump, to avoid any accidentally mangled limbs that might come with a handshake from one as strong as the troll. This resulted in several odd glances from the assorted heroes present. Remy sighed. He kept forgetting that he was several years in his respective past and that it was possible that the gesture of greeting hadn't spread that widely yet.

Laying on the charm, in hopes of avoiding future complications should the troll become uncontrolled, Remy made proper introductions. "I'm th' newcomer to dis group of heroes, much as yourself. I'm a mutant, which apparently tends more to th' scientific end of the spectrum than the outright mystical. The name is Remy. The blonde one is my long-lost sister, Tara. Th' friendly but possibly misguided redhead is her girlfriend, Willow. Giles is th' level-headed one with the glasses. Anya's the voice of experience and Xander is her _current_ beloved boyfriend. I don't know much about him, but he can swing a pretty mean sword-"

Tara broke off further comment from Remy by walking up and grabbing his arm tightly.

"What's th' matter, _cherie_?" Remy's eyes shone with concern and a dash of annoyance. "Gambit be sorry if he was monopolizing the conversation. He jus-"

"Something's going on with you," Tara muttered through gritted teeth, before speaking again in a louder, calm voice. "Hey, guys. We're going to step outside and have a bit of a friendly, family chat. Things should be busy for awhile around here, so you won't miss us too much."

Olaf smiled. "Do not tarry too long, slender woman. Any relative of a warrior with such an exquisite staff is a friend of mine."

Tara turned around to see that Remy had withdrawn his telescopic staff from wherever he carried it. He was leaning on the metal weapon in such a way as to suggest that, were the circumstances different, he'd be doing tricks.

Tara hit her brother in the arm and stormed out of the room.

Remy rubbed the spot bemusedly and followed.

##

Tara walked out the front door of the Magic Box and stood there for a few seconds, blinking in the sunlight. Looking over her shoulder at Remy, she sighed.

He sidled up next to her and smiled. "Something tells me dis conversation best be held over lunch."

She shook her head, a slight smile crossing her face. "There's a sandwich shop up here," Tara said as they began to walk across the street. "I feel like having something solid on rye."

"Been a while since I had a good Reuben. Oh, wait," Remy said, tugging lightly at Tara's sleeve as something caught his eye. "There's a Mexican place over there and it looks like they might actually put some effort into th' food."

As they stood in the shade of the building, looking in, Remy continued speaking. "You don't get many of these places where I live. Sure, you can find anything in New York City proper, but we live in the rural end of Westchester County and they jus' don't seem to pop up dat often. Or th' rest of the East Coast for that matter."

"There's a reason for that," Tara said, after they placed their order. "It's bad business sense. I have a friend who tried to open up a chain of restaurants in the Midwest, like people enjoy out here. Almost nobody came. They didn't know what to expect. Some of the people who showed up returned with their friends later on, but it wasn't enough to keep a business thriving. He had to pack his bags and come back home. I guess this means you've been in California before?"

Remy nodded. "I've been everywhere."

"Huh."

Remy thanked the waitress politely, with a bit of his normal flair. "Well," he said, after his first mouthful of food. "They don't know what they're missing."

##

"There it is again." Tara frowned. "Every time you meet someone new your aura flares. More than that, a bit of theirs changes color, like some of yours is rubbing off on them."

"Ah." Remy coughed into his fist. "There is a reason for dat. Not one I mention too often. Y'see, I have a bit of a charm power. Helps people take kindly t' me, sometimes lets me talk 'em into things they wouldn't do otherwise, although th' really showy stuff only happens if a person's 'normal' without a lot of life experience. Outside of a few who happen t' be _extremely_ susceptible to it, doesn't help too much if they're already angry or suspicious. And, if someone's in the know 'bout my power, they're basically immune, can't often get more'n a smile. When we first met, I was a bit more awkward than even the rather unusual circumstances would call for. Busy concentrating, suppressing that bit of myself, holding it back, so there wouldn't be a possibility of tainting our first meeting wi' it. Of course, I could've bypassed th' possibility by warning you about it in advance, but you can understand me being a slight bit paranoid, no?"

"Huh," Tara said, thinking back to the semi-naked man clinging to the top of a flagpole she'd seen earlier in the day. "I guess we've already seen some of your work?"

"Oh, him?" Remy waved his hand. "That wasn't jus' th' charm. I may have worked a bit of hypnosis into my persuasion techniques and th' guy really wanted to get on my good side. Simple matter of talking him up to the top of the pole and having him wrap his own arms through th' climbing gear behind his back in a way he couldn't see properly and wouldn't be able to readily undo on his own. No _really_ important bits were showing so th' results shouldn't be too severe."

Remy leaned back in his chair and stared out the window. "I figure fair punishment for few weeks' work and a nice amount of money is a stunt aimed at getting you kicked out of where you were doing it and hardship concernin' the school you'd been putting time and effort into. His face wasn't something you could see where we were standing, but dat was Rodney, your neighbor across th' hall at the dorm. He's been spying on you for your dad, ever since th' old man came to town and made him an offer, reportin' in by phone every few days."

Tara bit her lip and tilted her head in thought.

"I'm sorry." Remy said, sounding sincere. "I know I should've let you fight your own battles, but I jus' didn't want to wait."

"No." Tara sighed. "Right now, just another thing showing off how odd things are. You're being protective and strange. We're basically strangers. I get that. I just can't fit you into my world view and, in addition to everything else, it's bothering me. Despite what you said about being a mutant - and Giles backing that up - I was certain you were demon from your dad's side, making you my half-brother. Spike's reaction to you means you're basically human."

Tara wrapped one hand around her fist and rested her arms on the table, leaning forward slightly. "Pretty quickly after that, when I've started to believe that things make sense, I find out you're from an alternate reality. Now, I believe that our... my family has roots that tie us to this specific time and place, but I'm beginning to doubt..."

Remy patted her hands, causing her to look up. "I understand," he said, warmly. "First thing I need to do is track down th' mutants of dis reality and see how closely they resemble me and those of mine. Not to mention _you_ on th' off chance something's hidden. If they match up wi' me then we've eliminated one way of finding out the truth. If not, then clearly someone on my side of the border has some explaining to do. Do not worry. Gambit has some experience in these matters."

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she tried to give an expression somewhere between a smile and a frown. "Just what, exactly, is it that you _do_?"

Remy took a long drink of water to help keep a frown off his face. He knew this would be coming eventually, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Well, Gambit, he is very glad he not having to explain this cold, without letting you on about other realities, because dat would jus' be silly. I do whatever I want to do. My favorite combination of things jus' happens to be stealing stuff to save th' world with. I'm a thief and a very good one at dat. Trained by the best of th' guild that pretty much ran my New Orleans, not counting the parts ruled by th' assassins and odder groups yet. Thieving is against the general moral code of my reality too, but I never claimed to be _that _good of a person."

Tara's face paled slightly. "That explains dad's car. It... It's kinda hard to judge. Willow helped break into the local armory once to steal some needed weaponry. A government-employed scientist tried to kill Buffy. She's sort of a sanctioned vigilante and we're... support. There's plenty of legal means to hurt people. The question is, can I trust you enough to know, deep down, you're not making the world worse by the things you do."

"Heh." Remy almost kept the worry from his eyes. "No way to tell in the long run what is because of me and what is not. I do believe dat I have done a good job of cleaning up most of my own messes. Gambit is not one to lay th' blame on others. I know I have friends back home who are willing to lay their lives down for me, much as I would for them, so I must be doing something right, no?"

Tara tilted her head, showing off a small smile. "I guess that sort of answers my question about what you'll be doing_ besides_ tracking down mysteries when you leave here."

"Beyond th' fact dat I find practicing my skills quite fun, keeping everyone a bit suspicious helps offset this charm power hanging on my shoulders," Remy said with a wink. "Otherwise, things become a bit too easy, and dat be good for no-one."

Neither of them wanting to affect the uneasy peace, they finished their meal in silence.

##

Tara took the opportunity, once the table had been cleared, to lean forward. "So, let me guess." She placed her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. "You have a crack team of shadowy heroes - half mutants, half mages - that run around the world investigating suspicious archaeological digs and dabbling in cybercrime against oppressive corporations, barely managing to stay off the public radar no matter how high profile your cases get?"

"Nah, no real magic users. We're kind of the P.R. team for mutantkind, which means we strap on fancy costumes, usually wi' robes and capes for the ones who can fly and solve problems with our fists to take the spotlight off your average joe with three eyes who just wants to hold a job with a decent wage. The more of us doing good in the media... Well, there's a lot less of us then there used to be and it hasn't really made the racism any easier to deal with. As for why we're public with powers in the first place? It's kind of hard to keep a low profile when the local demons have enough power to pull off a transitory full-manifestation soul-corrupting planar merge with most of New York City." Remy grinned at the look on Tara's face. "And I haven't even mentioned the aliens yet."


End file.
